Tips for visiting Valle de Guadalupe?

I’m thinking of a day trip from San Diego to the Valle de Guadalupe in Baja. Any tips on wineries to visit or perhaps avoid? What about food options? Thanks!

I’ve only been a few times but usually go for seafood. Punta de Valle and Penninsula en el Valle both had good ceviche and seafood dishes, with home-made tortillas.

But there are a lot of little places that are pretty good in the area. You might just uncover some gem!

Wineries are kind of hit or miss. They were doing things like Nebbiolo (questionable), Cab (some OK), Tempranillo (not great) and Syrah, which oddly enough seemed to be OK in a number of places. Still works in progress though. Fun trip regardless!

What are the travel logistics of going there for the day or for the weekend?

Oh, and in before lame “it’s Mexico you should only drink beer” scold.

It’s easy to get to, about 1.5 hours south of Tijuana directly. Could easily do Thurs - Sun trip driving down from San Diego, best way is to fly into SD and drive across the border.

Very good Baja labels (some are wineries, others just small independents) include Vena Cava, Bruma, Henri Lurton, Lechuza, Fluxus, Aldo Cesar Palafox, Casa Magoni, and Cava Maciel, though many other good producers around too.

If you can book to stay at Adobe Guadalupe the property is beautiful and centrally located, and would highly recommend Traslomita and Fauna at Bruma for dinner. I sell Baja wines locally in Chicago, btdubs.

Not a bad drive if there’s no trouble with traffic. From SD to Tijuana isn’t a problem. Once you’re in TJ, it’s a crapshoot. Make sure you notify your carrier because the moment you cross the border your cell reception may or may not be affected and you’ll incur roaming charges. So if you use Google navigation, you may want to print out some maps before you head in.

Another thing you can do is book a bus from SD or even just drive down to SD and park. You can walk across the border from the parking lot and take a bus down. I’ve done that to avoid driving.

I highly recommend Baja Test Kitchen. Chris can dive you from San Diego, or in our case, picked us up in Ensenada from our cruise port. He is very knowledgeable and selected wonderful wineries and lunch.

Thanks for the replies. We’re going to say trip it and plan on a wait at the border on the return (or maybe not?). We’ll probably hit two places, I’m interested in Bodegas Andre Lurton and Finca la Carrodilla, we’ll see if they are available. Any others that might be worthwhile?

Might make sens to head east north of the border, and cross at Tecate. I’m pretty sure this is what my BIL does, who used to go down to San Felipe all the time (from San Diego) to visit his mother.

Our family was there in March. We were on a Disney cruise that stopped in Ensenada. We went on a wine tour, Baja Vino Tours, with Josh. He was a great tour guide and knew many of the vintners in the valley. I agree with others that the wines aren’t outstanding but we still had fun and enjoyed the tour. They are growing mostly Italian and Spanish varietals.

We visited Cava Maciel, Finca La Carrodilla, and Villa Montefiori. Cava Maciel was my favorite. They had a Nebbiolo that was quite good.

We had lunch at La Concheria in Ensenada. The food was great. Mostly a seafood menu.

I can’t second Alan’s suggestion more heartily. Tecate border crossing took us 20 mins as opposed to typical 2-hour wait on summer weekend in TJ. You have to jog inland a bit out of the way but so worth it.

As to wineries to visit, here is great post about some of the new guard of natural winemaking. Lulu Martinez fashioned my favorite wine of a recent trip … a savory orange wine for Henri Lurton.

It truly is the Wild West down there, with everyone trying different grape varieties and techniques to see what sticks. Most of the wines are just OK … a bit squishy or short or manipulated.

But it’s fun area to check out.

Tecate is way out of the way. Cross at TJ on way down. It’s shorter and no wait that direction. On way back take Otay Mesa Crossing which is a few miles east of TJ main crossing and less busy. Just avoid coming home on Sunday night if possible. All the crossings will be back up then

This.

Don’t do Sunday night.

Bizarre coincidence–there is a new thread on the CT forum from someone who just visited.
https://www.cellartracker.com/forum/tm.asp?m=473583

Thanks everyone. Yes, we’re going on a Monday so no weekend issues. And yes Otay Mesa was always the preferred crossing in the old days, I’ll give it a go. Tecate is out of the way but I’d head there if a two hour wait at TJ. Wouldn’t mind checking out Tecate again even if it’s a lot of mileage.

Yeah I expect the wines to be all over the place but just really curious to check it out.

Scott, thanks for the cellar tracker link, I’ll check that out.

Reviving this thread as Valle de Guadalupe has been on my list for a while, esp. now with a baby (and pandemic…) international flights are on a hiatus. Vincent, any fave wineries from your visit?

Just seeing this. Honestly no, we only tasted at two places and nothing was earth shattering. But if you haven’t been and you have ideas about Mexico being somehow less than, you’d be surprised. Magoni had some interesting wines, particularly whites. And lunch at Finca Altozano was fantastic, open air (though I think they’re take out only right now). There’s an intriguing saltiness to many of the wines, but I think most producers are trying to make big sweet fruited wines rather than more savory, graceful wines I might prefer. I’d go back to check it out more, especially given no trips to Europe and such. Good luck!

Gotcha - thanks for the response! Looking forward to my first trip, though the land border seems to be still blocked off…

I live in San Diego and had a Nebbiolo made by a local winery using grapes from Baja.
It was also quite good, but of course quite different than anything from Italy.
I think Baja gets a bad rap, sure there are not so good wines and some that are over priced, but there are good wines to be found.

Agreed that many of the wines had a salty characteristic too them. Not too off putting though. I wonder how hot the climate is there? I would guess it varies quite a bit depending on how close the vineyard is to the ocean.