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Santiago
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A long way around to discussing the state of wine quality in Baja.
One of the attributes of living for generations in places like Baja is that you become very good at extracting the last ounce of usefulness from a
piece of equipment, a structure or a system/procedure. You learn to fix/repair/repurpose or you do without. I get this and find it admirable. The
cleverness of some folks in figuring out how to solve a problem with what they have on hand is at times astounding.
I have recently noticed the same concept seems to apply to financial transactions as well. The first time this hit me was a few years ago in a good
sized grocery store, I dropped a small glass jar of mustard and it shattered - glass and yellow stuff all over the floor. The clerk grabs a mop and
bucket and hands it to me and walks away. OK, I broke it so I have to clean it up. Seems fair, right? When I put my items on the counter at the
checkout, I was charged for two jars of mustard, the one in the trash and the replacement one. The shop owner was completely in their rights to do so;
there were two less jars of mustard they paid for and stocked on the shelves when I left than when I walked in. All of this was done with smiles,
'buenas dias-es', 'gracias-es' etc.
The stark difference to how this would have been treated at my local Safeway or even the 7-Eleven down the street from my NorCal home was striking.
Customer breakage in my culture is just part of the ongoing overhead; in Baja it is a purchase at full value. And before everyone starts screaming at
me, I suspect that if this happened in the Soriana in Enseneda, I would not have had to clean it up myself and I would not have been charged for two,
maybe.
Another example of what I'm driving at is buying 2X4 studs at Home Depot. In NorCal I take my cart, pick thru the stacks and select the nice straight
boards. Everybody else is doing the same. In the back of the parking lot are stacks of twisted studs no one bought and I'm quite certain that the
price of the studs take this into account. In Ensenada, I cannot select my boards, the clerks do that for me and if I want 10, I get 10 in the order
they are on the selves - no culling allowed. When I ask why I can't get the boards myself, they tell me that their bosses don't want the customers
picking the good boards and leaving the bad ones. The twisted boards cost exactly the same as the straight ones.
In many small cafes, I have seen a fresh pot of coffee made, and then a few minutes later the waitress walks by and pours a cup of water in the maker
without changing the grounds. The cup of coffee costs the same but I sure know which pot I want mine to come from.
And don't even get me going on donuts. I have taken a late evening walk in Ensenada after the Donut shop closes and the display case has lots of
donuts in them. At 5:00am when I walk in for a coffee and donut - it's the same darn ones at the very same prices. These donuts have LOST their
economic value because the QUALITY is gone. They belong in bag of 13 for $10 pesos, if that.
I personally know of a Mexican woman who lives in Ensenada who had a diamond fall out of her engagement ring. She said that on her next trip NOB she
would get it re-attached. I asked her why not take it to a local jeweler? Because, she said sheepishly, they will replace the real stone with a fake
one. Her life experiences made her decide to spend a lot more money for security of transaction.
The above are a few examples I have experienced in Baja businesses extracting the maximum profit from every transaction, regardless of the customer's
experience. In asking some Mexican amigos about this they all, to a man, rolled their eyes and said their equivalent of 'duh, what did you expect?'
Let the buyer beware.
So, yesterday, SWMBO and I spent a leisurely afternoon in the Russian River Valley tasting wines from big and small vintners and to the last drop,
everything was simply outstanding. Now maybe you will prefer one style over another, but that is simply personal taste and the variability of
winemaking. Every single winery was more focused on what was in the bottle than all the trappings surrounding it. On the drive home SWMBO asked why
I was so silent. I was comparing my last trip through Guadalupe and the bad wine I was served at two fancy new wineries. At basically the same
prices as the Russian River Valley wineries - $20-$25 for about half of their inventory, on up after that.
You see, there is no way to know what is inside the bottle until after it's paid for. There is a trust that the grower, buyer and vintner are doing
their very best with what they have to work with. If the business plan is to hire an architect from Mexico City to build a beautiful winery on the
hills overlooking the valley with gravity flow system from the crusher to the stainless steel tanks to the french oak barrels with the latest bottling
lines where great looking labels from Mexican artists are put on and then stored in underground caves for 12 months while your internet folks are
building a great web-site to make sure that well-healed snooty wine snob-want-a-be's from So Cal can make it to your place to pay $20-$30 for a bottle
---- somewhere in this plan better be someone who gives a crap on what is in the bottle.
I fear that in the rush to get in on the wine market, the twisted 2X4s, the day old donuts, the weak coffee, the fake diamonds are getting in as well.
Let the buyer beware.
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elgatoloco
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Well stated.
Viva Baja!
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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tripledigitken
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Is this your writing or is it a cut and paste?
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ignatz
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That was very well written. I believe this is the older generation of Mexicans treating their business like this and that the younger generations are
changing.
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Santiago
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Mine
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maryellen50
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Totally agree. Id never pay more than 100 pesos for a bottle of Mexican wine. Have yet to find one in that price range that was comparable to
California wines.
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durrelllrobert
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The MX government imposes a 40% tax on each bottle of wine + the regular 16% IVA tax. However the wineries do not add the 40% tax stamp (46.4% with
IVA) UNTIL THE BOTTLE IS LABLED and some wineries will sell you their wines without the lable so you save 46.4 % and a $20 bottle becomes $12.43
including the IVA tax. Plus you do not pay the mandatory recylcing fee they charge for the bottle in California.
[Edited on 7-5-2015 by durrelllrobert]
Bob Durrell
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SFandH
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About the 2x4s, I've had different experiences at a Home Depot in Rosarito and a nearby Consturama when I was helping an "all thumbs" friend build a
deck. The Consturama had two prices for 8 foot 2x4s, good ones and not so good ones. Both stores not only let me pick the lumber I wanted, the guys
helped me do it. So, it appears to be differing store policies.
If I ran into what you did I would have gone elsewhere. You can't do good framing with warped, twisted lumber.
I don't know about wine. The few bottles of red I've bought in Baja were from Chile. About the same price as a 6 pack of beer, which I prefer, burp,
if I remember correctly.
[Edited on 7-5-2015 by SFandH]
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Santiago
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Quote: Originally posted by durrelllrobert  | The MX government imposes a 40% tax on each bottle of wine + the regular 16% IVA tax. However the wineries do not add the 40% tax stamp (46.4% with
IVA) UNTIL THE BOTTLE IS LABLED and some wineries will sell you their wines without the lable so you save 46.4 % and a $20 bottle becomes $12.43
including the IVA tax. Plus you do not pay the mandatory recylcing fee they charge for the bottle in California.
[Edited on 7-5-2015 by durrelllrobert] |
Yes, ridiculously high taxes, but they are all paying it. My point is to be aware of new wineries being built and marketed with a lot of money behind
them - it does not appear to me they are in the business because they love wine and want to make as good a product as they can. Las Nubes and El
Cielo are new with top-notch facilities and have done a pretty good job actually making wine IMHO.
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Whale-ista
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Good observations. I've wondered about the different "retail strategies" NOB vs SOB over the years, when I've lived/travelled in Baja. I noticed
people are especially careful to conserve, perhaps related to their historic isolation and higher costs. And even as that changes, the long-term
memory remains (spoken as one w/family pre-dating the establishment of the Baja states, who were given land grants when all of Baja was a territory.)
Re:your broken mustard jar: in the US, many retailers add the "cost of doing business" into product prices. And, they want to keep their customers.
In the opinion of many (not all) Baja business owners, competition is less, prices maybe lower, so "customer service" is not as evident.
Also, when you break that jar in the US, there is already a profit built in to cover the cost of "loss." (I've worked in retail sales in the US, and
we always had loss built into sales projections: theft, damage, "spoilage" etc. are a constant. You have to assume some items will never be sold, and
adjust overall prices accordingly.)
With less profit, and/or lower sales- it becomes "you break it you buy it." True in small shops in the US, or anywhere really.
Finally, as for wine prices, quality, production standards, variety... having been blessed with travel to wine regions and tastings/tours of vineyards
in So Cal, Chile, France, Germany, Baja, Nor Cal.... that's a much longer discussion, better done over a few copas!
\"Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a
Floridian ugliness.\" (John Steinbeck, 1940, discussing the future of La Paz, BCS, Mexico)
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woody with a view
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back to the 2x4's where are the better lumberyards? i know G Negro has one, Maneadero has one, Depot in Ens/Ros and ConstruramaJamma. if you were
buying your own 2x6, hangars, plywood, drip edge and some rolled roofing where would you shop? are their prices similar?
Sorry for the hijack Santiago, but you did mention 2x4s!
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Hook
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| Quote: Originally posted by durrelllrobert | The MX government imposes a 40% tax on each bottle of wine + the regular 16% IVA tax. However the wineries do not add the 40% tax stamp (46.4% with
IVA) UNTIL THE BOTTLE IS LABLED and some wineries will sell you their wines without the lable so you save 46.4 % and a $20 bottle becomes $12.43
including the IVA tax. Plus you do not pay the mandatory recylcing fee they charge for the bottle in California.
[Edited on 7-5-2015 by durrelllrobert] |
Regardless of the level of taxation, I expect it is more expensive to operate a winery in California than in the Guadalupe Valley.
Mexican wines are just so uncompetitive, compared to the rest of the world, unless you want to pay 25+ dollars a bottle. Then, they become a bit more
competitive, but how many Mexican wineries would you have to choose from in that price range? Maybe five to seven? Below that, maybe the same number?
From South Africa, Chile and Argentina, it would be dozens. From Spain, France, Italy and the U.S., it would be hundreds. So many more chances to
find a better wine for the same price or cheaper.
Why in the heck does Mexico tax their wine industy 46.4% for product sold INTERNALLY in the country? It smacks of protectionism of the beer or tequila
interests in Mexico.
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Whale-ista
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Hook asks: "Why in the heck does Mexico tax their wine industy 46.4% for product sold INTERNALLY in the country? It smacks of protectionism of the
beer or tequila interests in Mexico."
I think you are correct: it's that weird protection vs. "free capitalism", and perhaps also the lack of lobbying/influence of Baja wine interests?
Many started as immigrants from France, Spain, etc. Perhaps they didn't have the same connections to the decision makers of the "locals"?
\"Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a
Floridian ugliness.\" (John Steinbeck, 1940, discussing the future of La Paz, BCS, Mexico)
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bkbend
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| Quote: Originally posted by Santiago |
Another example of what I'm driving at is buying 2X4 studs at Home Depot. In NorCal I take my cart, pick thru the stacks and select the nice straight
boards. Everybody else is doing the same. In the back of the parking lot are stacks of twisted studs no one bought and I'm quite certain that the
price of the studs take this into account. In Ensenada, I cannot select my boards, the clerks do that for me and if I want 10, I get 10 in the order
they are on the selves - no culling allowed. When I ask why I can't get the boards myself, they tell me that their bosses don't want the customers
picking the good boards and leaving the bad ones. The twisted boards cost exactly the same as the straight ones.
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Clint at the north "Home Depot" in Bahia lets me pick through his lumber so I can get the less twisted ones (I didn't know a straight 2X4 existed in
Mexico). A couple years ago I brought down a couple 1X4 pine boards to stain and use for trim in the bathroom. The wife liked it and wanted some
trim elsewhere so I went to see Clint and he actually had new 1X4 the same I'd brought down and the cost was less than the US Home Depot price.
That's probably a rare example and I generally agree with your lamentations, but have learned to accept the way business is done.
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bajaguy
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Mood: must be 5 O'clock somewhere in Baja
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Depends on your taste
El Cielo wines are crap (in my opinion). I'll spend my money at Lechuza
Regarding donuts (specifically apple fritters and cinnamon rolls), try Ke Donas. On Reforma (Hwy 1) southbound, on your right side. Between the Air
Force Base and Taco's Original. Family run, fresh everyday.
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movinguy
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Indeed - Cielo was not good, Lechuza = a gringo and his Columbiana wife making some pretty good stuff.
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Santiago
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Note on El Cielo; when we were there in March, they had just opened. When we went thru the tasting, I thought the wines and the pairings (cholcolate,
mostly) were OK, maybe even better than OK. I recall it was their first vintage. Anyway, we got a couple of bottles and opened them last night after
reading BG's impression - so-so at best. Their winery facility is really nice; almost too nice if you get my drift. Still, as long as they can get
good grapes they should be able to attract a good wine maker as the whole operation would have you drooling if you were in the biz. They are a little
bit snooty and if the older wineries don't like them I sure could understand why.
Anyway, twice I have tried to get to Lechuza and both times they were not open so this October I am going to book a tour, lunch, the whole thing.
I hope the valley has grown enough that it is OK to NOT like somebodies operation and OK to say so. It's perfectly OK to be the Two-Buck-Chuck of the
valley, just say so and then we won't get all freaked out. Padre Kino fills a market. There is farm cheese, farm beef and it's all good. There's an
old Italian guy who is in the foothills where I live and he sells his Dago Red in gallon jugs and you know, it's not bad. But, you know exactly what
you are getting. I just want the Valley to quit acting like everything is a gold medal winner - no, some is vin ordinare, so say the least. You know,
farm wine.
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BajaTed
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Try out Deckmans, 5 star chef from NY and Cabo, Not in it for the $$$, just good food and decent wine
Es Todo Bueno
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bajaguy
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I agree...........
The Valle, like anywhere else such as Napa and the wine aisle at trader Joe's is a matter of personal taste.
The last time I was at El Cielo was in September of 2014......it was all hat and no cattle.
In addition to Lechuza, try and stop in to see Manuel Delgado at MD Vinos in Uruapan, south of Ensenada/Maneadero.
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Santiago
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I have twice tried to taste wine at El Magor, they were booked with private parties so I did not crash (well, maybe a little bit.)
deckman's in on my list.
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