Full bouquet: Wine snobs might not get it, but local vintage makes the grade. (Spotlight).

Mexico is internationally recognized, and rightly so, for a variety of unique foods and beverages, from tacos to tequila, beer to barbacoa, mole to mezcal. While the country's gourmet excellence is celebrated worldwide, there remains one area which Mexico would like to dominate but, to date, has had limited success: the world of quality wines.

Good wine grapes originate from areas that lie within two latitude bands that circle the world--one for the Northern Hemisphere and one for the Southern Hemisphere. Only within these bands is the climate perfect for successful wine production. It is for this reason that you never hear of a fine Guatemalan vintage, as it lies too far south, and why they're aren't any vineyards in Scotland or Canada, as they are too far north.

The northern band includes Spain and southern France, Italy, California and northern Mexico. The southern band passes over New Zealand and Australia, South Africa, Argentina and Chile.

With northern Mexico well within the northern band, it would be logical to conclude that Mexican wines would hold as much prestige as any other country's product, but this has never really been the case.

Why Mexican wines have never gained as much international credit as, say, Californian wines, has its roots in many factors. These include high prices, limited selection, a lack of wine culture in the country and Mexican tendencies to prefer foreign imports.

SOUR GRAPES

It is with these prejudices in mind that the National Association of Wine Producers has embarked on a new crusade to promote the much undervalued and underestimated world of Mexican wines.

The US$3 million campaign, which can now be seen in ads on the TV and radio, and in newspapers, magazines and movie theaters, has been dubbed "Mexican Wine: Appreciated for its flavor--prize-winning for its quality."

The campaign aims to destroy the myths that a decent wine can only be from abroad and simply can't replace a bottle of beer or tequila at the Mexican dinner table.

This is an uphill struggle. The factors mentioned above are powerful cultural norms that may need more than a well-placed public relations exercise to be reversed.

Mexico simply does not have a wine-drinking culture like that found in Europe, United States, or even in other Latin American countries like Argentina and Chile. Besides, on average, Mexicans drink only a little more than one-quarter of a liter, or one-third of a bottle, per-capita, per-year.

According to 1997 figures from the California Wine Institute, this is tiny compared to the United States (eight liters), Spain (36 liters), France (60 liters) or even non-wine producing countries like England (14 liters).

Aside from the relative strength of the tequila and beer culture in Mexico, high prices for a bottle of wine do not help either. A bottle can cost anything between 50 to 300 pesos and beyond, compared to a liter of beer at 10 to 15 pesos.

The Mexican government places high taxes on all alcohol, which, all included, account for 45% of your average bottle price. On top of that, Mexican wine production is an expensive process due to it being a fairly young and undeveloped industry.

"There are no materials in Mexico for making wine, which means pretty much everything--including the bottle and corks, labels, barrels and machinery for pressing the grapes--has to be imported and all of this has an import tax," says Mark Hojel, general director of the Monte Xanic wine company. "These costs all translate as a mark-up on shelf price."

In fact, Mexican wine is often the same price if not more expensive than French or Spanish wines in the shops. Wines originating in countries with hundreds of years of wine producing experience and infrastructure also tend to benefit from government agricultural subsidies. Foreign wine at throwaway prices has done untold damage on the Mexican wine industry. Of the 74 Mexican wine companies in the country before Mexico 's entrance into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986, only 16 still remain. Discussions on how agricultural subsidies are effecting Mexican industries continue to be a much debated point in ongoing free trade agreement talks between Mexico, the United States and especially Europe.

Whether the wine industry in Mexico will receive support from the government is open to question, but Hojel isn't optimistic. It is a Catch-22 situation, he explains: The industry is not big enough to warrant special exceptions, but it will never become an important industry if exceptions aren't made.

"Chile, for example, had almost no industry a few years ago until the government started to pay attention and support wine production," he explains. "Since then, the industry has flourished and Chilean wine has become internationally recognized."

Without support, the industry is an expensive one for producers and this expense is passed on to the consumer.

"We can compete in quality, but to give more competitive prices is the challenge," says Alberto Curis, President of the National Association of Wine Producers.

LOCAL APPRECIATION

High prices in Mexico lead to a very specialized market. Wine consumption in Mexico is almost exclusively a trait of the middle and upper classes. The effect of the high prices is most vividly illustrated by looking at a quick history of wine consumption in the last couple of decades. In 1985, wine sales reached a height of 3.5 million cases (one case holds nine liters of wine) a year. By 1995, during the last major economic crisis, this consumption had fallen to 1.8 million cases. In what could tentatively be used as an alternative method of gauging consumer confidence in the country, the last three years has seen wine consumption increase once again, and at the end of 2000, it was at 2.1 million cases.

Another tendency, known as Malinchismo, is an important factor in the popularity of Mexican wine. Malinchismo, or favoring foreign over domestic culture, is certainly not a uniquely Mexican trait. The world of wine already boasts an air of snobbery in many countries and Mexico is no exception. To see an example of this tendency, just take a bottle of Mexican wine, no matter how good, to a dinner party, and notice how slowly it is consumed compared to the Chilean, French or Spanish bottles. The Mexican selection will most likely be placed toward the back of the table and not touched until there really isn't anything else to drink.

"Malinchismo is a strong element in why Mexican wine has not found much acceptance," says Alberto Curis. "That is what we are trying to combat with this new campaign."

Hojel agrees that the Association's publicity campaign and advertising efforts by any of the larger wine companies are pretty much wasted on older Mexicans, who are unlikely to give up their preferences for Riojas from Spain or French Cabernets.

"Our publicity campaigns are directed toward the younger generation, trying to show them that Mexican wine is as good as any other," he says.

Luis Agustin Cetto, general director of one of Mexico's largest producers, Productos de Uva, which makes L.A. Cetto wine, agrees that it is the younger generation that will be the main focus audience.

"It is the younger Mexicans who have shown the greatest increase in curiosity about Mexican wines. I believe that we'll see a great increase in consumption from this group in the next five to 10 years," says Cetto.

Monte Xanic has opened a fancy wine bar in the upper-class Polanco neighborhood in Mexico City to attract young people to the world of wines. It offers a selection of both international and domestic varieties, many available by the glass--a system Hojel insists must be adopted by more restaurants if Mexicans are to see that Mexican wine is competitive with foreign varieties.

GOING GLOBAL

Of the 1 million cases of wine produced a year in Mexico, 20% are exported to 21 countries. While the Association's campaign will focus primarily on increasing consumption in Mexico, the export market is also important to the industry's survival--both in terms of sales growth and in reputation-building.

However, selling wine to international buyers has its own problems.

"Mexico is not really seen worldwide as a wine producing country," Cetto points out. "Mexico is seen as a country of tequila, pyramids, beer and tacos. Wines do not really come into this image of Mexico."

This stereotype might influence the average consumer, but within international wine circles Mexican wine has been recognized repeatedly for its quality. In three decades of production, Mexican wine has been awarded no less than 83 internationally respected prizes in nine different countries.

To some extent this has translated into the market, especially in the United States, according to Hojel, who says that Monte Xanic has made a particular effort to place its wines in the gourmet restaurants and wine bars in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

"The popularity of all things Latin in the States at the moment has helped us boost our market there," he says.

Wine consumption in Mexico is growing at 2% to 3% per year, according to the Association, but so are imports at approximately the same level.

By the time you read this, the Association's publicity campaign should be in full swing. Apart from the commercials on televisions and in the street, there will also be a number of "Pepsi Challenge"-style promotional campaigns in most major supermarkets.

Curis is adamant that Mexican wine can hold its own against any other international wine, so, if you see a wine challenge, give it a try--you may be pleasantly surprised. However, if you are thinking of taking that bottle to a party, you may find yourself having to defend the choice to any wine snobs lurking about.

Paul Day is a Mexico City-based freelance writer.