Baja California

A "Gourmet Tour", with Baja Wine Tours-Part 1

A trip through Tijuana's old and new cuisine

By Jorge Guevara2014-03-27T22:00:00+00:00

TIJUANA.- This past weekend, COTUCO (the city's tourism board) and Baja Wine Tours invited to join their newest product for guest and locals looking to learning, and tasting, more about Tijuana's rich culinary history. Calling it a "Gourmet Tour" simplifies what they really provided us with, as it was much more than this.

COTUCO president Arturo Gutiérrez Sánchez,explained the tour as being aimed at tourist arriving from the border and learning more about Baja Med, the wine industry and craft-beers in our region. The tour visits six emblematic locations that include the cellars of L. A. Cetto, and then on to the El Colegio Baja Med restaurant, followed by

Ceasars, birth place of the eponymous salad, and also both Misión 19,and La Diferencia, ending the tour with dessert at the BCB Tasting Room.

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And we began the tour near Tijuana's historic downtown, at the L.A. Cetto wine cellar, one of the most important, and largest, wineries in Baja California, if not all of Mexico. We were welcomed by Dora Luz Villarino León from Baja Wine Tours and Alicia Rubio of COTUCO. While we were waiting for the tour to start, Carlos de la Torre introduced himself as the expert sommelier that would be accompanying us throughout the day.

After a brief introduction, he taught us a quick course on wine tasting with a Chenin Blanc from L.A. Cetto and talked in detailed about appraising each odor and taste from this young wine. Afterwards, we we went down to the cellar were they kept their wines, of course. The walls are adorned with thousands of bottles waiting to go to market, and a long hallway lighted by faint lights is filled with wine casks. We were just about to begin the explanation when something unexpected happened; a Franciscan monk appeared, holding a candled and chanting a song that sounded centuries old, who proceeded to talk about the history of wine in the state. I took a sip of wine and we all then quietly made our way out, realizing that this wasn't going to be like any other tour in the state.

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We boarded a bus and several questions from the group spilled pout, about where were we heading to, only to be told nothing, besides saying our next stop was the El Colegio Baja Med, one of Chef Miguel Ángel Guerrero's restaurants, a pioneer and the inventor of the Baja Med style cuisine. We were only just being served a glass of wine from Don Luis's L.A. Cetto cellar that an elegant lady appeared (not out of thin air, but from a room beside us of course). She played the role of "Tia Juana", and proceeded to tell us a bit about the history of Tijuana and how it grew into the city it is today.

After talking with the "Tia Juana", Chef Luis Sánchez gave us our first pairing of a day, a white salmon crostini , which turned out to be an unusual combination with the served wine, but as Carlos de la Torre explained, the strong contrast of tastes was the intention. We were only just beginning to eat when guitar music started to fill the air and "Tia Juana" serenaded us with an incredible interpretation of "Malagueña Salerosa".

To end the music and the course, we entered the second part of our dinner, a small beef tongue (pretty common dish in Mexico) hamburger that went really well with the wine. The music, the great atmosphere and food continued for a while, but we had to head out towards our next stop in the tour, literally almost just across the street from were we were: to Caesar's Restaurant.

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We were on our way to Caesar's when they stopped us at the restaurants entrance for a picture with the famous stripped donkeys on Avenida Revolución, or "Zonkey's" as some call them. So the entire tour joined and took this great photo: