Tequila from the blue agave plant and beer imported from Mexico — few bars or bundle shops in San Antonio, not to mention households, can be with out them.
However wine produced from vineyards south of the border?
Que bueno, que vino, say the homeowners of Casa Guipzot.
Salena and Eduardo Guipzot found a few of the lesser-known wines of Mexico three years in the past whereas touring in Cuatro Ciénegas and shortly after introduced the palate-pleasing product to San Antonio.
In lower than a month, they’ll open the doorways of their new tasting room in San Antonio’s oldest former neighborhood.
Mexico’s wine trade goes again to the late sixteenth century with Casa Madero, one of many oldest vineyards in all of the Americas. At the moment, a lot of the nation’s vineyards are situated in Baja California, a Mexican state on the highest half of a peninsula south of San Diego, with wines generally exported to California.
However at Parras de la Fuente in Coahuila, a Mexican state bordering Texas, there are actually 35 vineyards in full manufacturing.
The marketplace for Mexican wines remains to be new, however rising, Salena Guipzot stated. “Even Mexico is barely catching as much as consuming Mexican wines. It’s fascinating as a result of it’s not a part of our tradition to drink wine, it’s not a part of the Mexican tradition.”
Actually, all of Texas drinks extra wine than all of Mexico put collectively, she stated.
Those that are consuming the luxurious merchandise in Mexico generally devour wines from locations like France, Argentina and Chile, however Salena Guipzot cited a latest examine exhibiting that now three out of 10 wines being consumed in that nation are of Mexican origin.
With a aim to construct the Mexican wine market in Texas, the Guipzots opened their tasting room and warehouse in 2022 in Salena’s former Westside neighborhood, then created a gradual following and constructed the enterprise into one of many largest wine golf equipment within the metropolis.
The wines of Mexico are as pleasing to frequent wine drinkers as novices, she stated, with the categories various between Previous World-style and pure and natural wines.
Costs for a bottle of wine via Casa Guipzot vary from about $30 to $90 with some choices as excessive as $200 to $300. If the incoming administration raises tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports by 25%, as President-elect Donald Trump has stated he plans to after taking workplace this month, these costs might enhance.
“I’ve instructed our prospects we’ll fear about crossing that bridge when and if we get there [so] till then, maintain having fun with the wonderful wines Mexico has to supply,” Salena Guipzot stated.
Vino in La Villita
Positioned within the Losana Home at La Villita, instantly throughout from the doorway to the Arneson River Theatre, the brand new Casa Guipzot web site at 418 Villita St., Constructing 2, will serve the customer market in downtown San Antonio, Salena Guipzot stated.
“It’s actually the epicenter of San Antonio and its historical past and its tradition,” she stated, including that she hopes to spotlight that historical past via Mexican wines.
With the ultimate touches being placed on the tasting room in an 1859 residential construction that almost all not too long ago served as a clothes boutique, the homeowners anticipate it to open in early February.
Salena Guipzot plans to first host a vino con vecinos occasion for her new La Villita neighbors, adopted by grand opening occasions with native chambers of commerce. Then she is going to return to Mexico to purchase extra wines, her favourite a part of operating the enterprise, she stated.
“My husband and I journey all all through Mexico and go to all of the vineyards,” she stated. “So there’s not one wine I don’t carry in my portfolio that I haven’t visited.”
The Guipzots have labored to develop relationships with vintners in Mexico, and bringing their wines to San Antonio has motivated different native wine retailers to inventory these wines as properly, she stated.
“After we go to these vineyards, it’s not seasonal staff,” she stated. “These are generational households that take pleasure in cultivating the land and producing their wine.”
‘One thing new’
Salena Guipzot pitched the Metropolis of San Antonio on the La Villita tasting room in response to a request for {qualifications} nearly a yr in the past, and after a rigorous choice course of, Casa Guipzot was accepted for the lease in October.
Metropolis paperwork state that the choice committee decided the wine purveyor would add the “power of a brand new entrepreneur to the village,” and that Casa Guipzot would complement the prevailing tenant combine and draw extra night foot site visitors to La Villita.
The tasting room will probably be open Sunday via Wednesday, 11 a.m. to eight p.m., and Thursday via Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Salena received the keys to the home in early November.
“It simply actually checked all of the bins when it comes to historical past, tradition, group, one thing new for folks to expertise, and wine tasting is one thing that everyone can take pleasure in,” she stated.
The continued development on South Alamo Avenue and all through downtown that has vexed enterprise homeowners and guests for greater than a yr didn’t deter the wine store homeowners from pursuing the La Villita web site.
For one factor, the town discounted the hire because of the development, making startup much less dangerous for Casa Guipzot whereas the couple continues to keep up its workplaces and tasting room at 118 S. Sabinas St.
At La Villita, Salena Guipzot envisions prospects sitting at bistro tables outdoors the Losana home alongside Villita Avenue having fun with a glass of wine whereas they stroll, calm down or people-watch, and believes that such an expertise is required within the artisan procuring and eating village.
“It’s simply going to assist tremendously … for folks to take pleasure in the remainder of La Villita,” she stated.
