Mexican wine makers taste success

EZQUIEL MONTES, Mexico -- In the land of tequila and beer, some are raising a glass to a wine renaissance.

Mexico is the Western Hemisphere's oldest wine producer, yet its wines are little known in this country or anywhere else.

But accomplished wine makers who have worked toward restoring respectability to Mexico since the late 1980s are getting results. Their efforts have made everyday Mexican wines more drinkable, and their premium products are beginning to catch the eyes of European and US importers.

''I wasn't sure they'd even be good, but it was . . . a revelation," Marguerite Thomas, travel editor for the Wine News, of Coral Gables, Fla., said after touring Baja California's wine country.

While there is debate within the wine community about whether international awards really measure quality, Mexican wines have taken home more than 110 since 1990.

Mexico exports wine to more than 20 countries, mostly the United States, Germany, and Great Britain. Between 1998 and 2001, the country's wine exports increased more than 25 percent to over $4.5 million a year.

Only 40 percent of the wine consumed in Mexico, however, is Mexican. Wines from Spain, France, and Chile outsell domestics. Domestic wines face a hard sell to the Mexican public. Nursing a glass of French cabernet sauvignon at a Mexico City hotel, salesman Carlos Rodriguez said he prefers his wines from anywhere but Mexico.

Jose Antonio Llaquet, enologist at the Freixenet vineyard, said that many Mexicans don't discover products from their country are good until they become a hit somewhere else.