Cruising around the Baja horn and up into the Sea of Cortez under 85 degree skies is sheer pleasure, and that’s what I have been doing with my time for the past couple of weeks. I was also on a mission to find out if cruise ships had got on the wine tasting bandwagon and presented wines with any more passion than the last time I stepped on board a year ago. The answer unfortunately is no. The selections are for the most part uninteresting, and marked up unreasonably.
The only consolation for the sea traveler is to “BYOB”….bring your own bottles on board. Holland America, the cruise line I was on, allows unlimited wines to be brought in by passengers, as long as they pay a $15. “corkage fee” if a bottle is consumed at the dinner table.
I asked why the cruise ship did not carry or feature the quality wines from Mexico like L.A. Cetto ( chetto) or Monte Xanic (han-eec), from the respected Guadalupe Valley near Ensenada. They had no answer and it occurred to me that cruise ships haven’t yet “got it” about the dynamic interest in the world of wines.
Each time the ship docked for passengers to go ashore, I searched the boardwalks for Mexican wines. They are hard to find, but I finally struck it rich at Cabo San Lucas and a wine shop called La Europa, in the Puerto Paraiso shopping center.
It was truly a “door to paradise” for European, California and Mexican wines at surprisingly value prices. I picked up the L.A. Cetto reserve Nebbiolo 2002 for $17. and their Petite Sirah for $8. The Monte Xanic was a blend of Cabernet and Merlot from vintage 2000 that went for $23. Just so you know in advance, customs allows a maximum 1 liter of alcoholic beverages back to the U.S. per person. That amounts to approximately 1 and 1 /2 bottles of a standard size 750 ml. bottle of wine so when you go, bring a friend so you can take back 3 bottles together.
L.A. Cetto grapes are used in San Diego Country wineries Belle Marie in Escondido, and Witchcreek in Carlsbad. The modern winery is run by Camillo Magoni, master winemaker from the Piedmont area of Italy, since 1965. The winery was founded by the Cetto family in 1925 and has about 2,000 prime acres of grapevines in the heart of the Guadalupe Valley. Their Petite Sirah and Nebbiolo have won gold throughout the world. Nebbiolo should ring a bell for Italian wine lovers. It’s the grape used in the legendary Barolo and Barbaresco wines. It is an intense wine with perfectly balanced tannins, full of berry-body with an almost black look to it. Aged in French oak for 14 months and in bottle for 2 years, it picks up a wood and spice hue to it. The ’02 I tasted was drink-now perfect. A few more years in cellar and this would rival an Italian Gaja.
If you would like to visit the winery and modern tasting room, tours from San Diego go direct to the Guadalupe Valley. To find out when, contact tour guide Steve Dryden at 619-300-4976, or e mail HYPERLINK "mailto:sbdryden@hotmial.com" sbdryden@hotmail.com.
by Frank Mangio
No comments:
Post a Comment