A Wine Journey With Chef Rick Bayless

It's a bright morning in Valle de Guadalupe, and we’re all on the bus. In the front seat, chef里克·贝勒斯（Rick Bayless）is saying, “OK, let’s do a quick postmortem on last night’s dinner. So, we all know the difference between moritas and chiles pasillas oaxaqueños …”

实际上，我们所有人都没有。具体来说，Ido not. But the rest of the group, a bleary-but-functional gang of cooks and staff from Bayless’ Chicago-based restaurant group, certainly does. This is day two of a dive-bombing trip through theValle de Guadalupewine region, and we’re already slightly fried.

应该补充的是，“ Bleary但功能性”适用于除Bayless自己以外的所有人。他跪在座位上，动画且过度地刻有座椅，剖析了我们昨晚在Animalón举行的（我认为非常令人印象深刻的）晚餐，厨师Javier Plascencia的户外餐厅。他当然会去做：“那只蛤s，用aguachile砍了。那里的糖会使它变软。但是我认为应该是一个agu徒 - ”他将右拳头撞到左手的手掌中。that. And it had shiso in it! But you get that in Baja cooking right now. That Asian influence. And what about the wine?”

If you ever want a safe bet in life, this is it: Rick Bayless knows more about Mexican cuisine than you do. An Oklahoma kid who grew up helping in his family’s barbecue restaurant, he visited Mexico for the first time at age 14, “and I knew, instantly, it was where I wanted to be.” The route initially was anthropology, but just short of writing his PhD dissertation, Bayless moved with his wife and business partner, Deann, to Mexico for five years to research his first cookbook. He opened Frontera Grill in Chicago in 1987, following that with James Beard Awards, cookbooks, TV shows, more restaurants (most recently Leña Brava, in 2016), even Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle, the nation’s highest honor given to foreigners.

Some people use expertise to impress. Bayless instead seems driven by passion—it’s as if he wants everyone he meets to be as inspired by Mexico as he is. That’s part of why he’s such an effective presence on TV, and it helps explain why he and Deann organize these Mexico trips for their restaurant teams several times a year. “We were open for a year and a half when Rick came to me and suggested it,” Deann says. “So they could feel what we do, experience what we’ve experienced.”

Here’s how that goes. After arriving, we zoom to Ensenada forfish tacos(seriously great fish tacos) and seafood tostadas, pop over the craggy hills to Valle de Guadalupe proper, hit two wineries (Bodegas Henri Lurton, owned by the French Lurton family but with wines made by Ensenada native Lulú Martinez Ojeda, and Adobe Guadalupe), check in to our very-nice-but-still-a-tent glamping accomodations at Cuatro Cuatros, then head to Animalón for an eight-course dinner that lasts till midnight. Hence, bleary. (Bayless was up at 6 a.m. doing yoga.)

现在,当我们把车开进别墅Montefiori, vin的家tner Paolo Paoloni, the chef cheerfully wraps up his Animalón disquisition: “Doing a mayo withchicatanas, those little nutty-flavored ants, that’s all the rage now. It’s actually a good way to sequester insects—you’re not asking people to eat a lot of straight-up bugs. Even the squeamish will go for it.”

Tuck that away for future reference, right?

In Valle de Guadalupe,Paoloni tells us, wine is all about water. Or, actually, the lack thereof. We’re in his not-quite-finished new tasting room with crisp, green apple–scented Chardonnay in hand. The wind whips through the still-empty window frames to ruffle our hair. That wind, plus irrigation, is key: Valle is fenced in from the Pacific but cooled by it, which is why the region can grow top-quality wine grapes rather than sun-roasted raisins. “It’s a semidesert here,” Paoloni says. “We’re not Brazil. We need water.” Average rainfall in Valle de Guadalupe is 10 inches per year, we learn. “In Napa, they get 50. If they get 30, oh my God, it’s a drought. Last year? We got four.”

Twenty years ago, when Paoloni opened his doors, there were 10 wineries in the valley. Now there are over 100. Tourism growth is even more profound—there are now dozens of hotels, dozens of restaurants. But don’t expect Northern California’s gloss. People like to call Valle “the new Napa,” but here the side roads are still mostly dirt, and many locals would like to keep it that way.

亚搏电竞葡萄酒在这里并不是遥不可及的。Jesuit priests from Spain planted the valley’s first vines in 1701. But the recent profusion of new wine ventures builds on a culinary revolution that began in 2001 when local chef Jair Téllez, whose first cooking job was at the Tijuana racetrack when he was a teenager and who later progressed to stints at Daniel in New York City and La Folie in San Francisco, opened his restaurant Laja. It seemed a lunatic venture in a dusty nowhereland, but it inspired a wave of ambitious fellow chefs and, later, winemakers.

Our last wine at Villa Montefiori,the 2014 Paoloni Nebbiolo de Guadalupe, smells of roses and blueberries. Abundantly fruity, it is, as Bayless comments to the gang, “like a big hug of all these glorious flavors.” One thing about Rick Bayless: He’s just as invested in Mexican wine as he is in Mexican food. From here we head back over the hills to the Aguamala brewery in Ensenada—craft brewing has hit Baja, too—swing by Vena Cava winery, down a sunset cocktail at Cuatro Cuatros’ bar overlooking the Pacific, and wrap up our day with another multicourse meal, this time at Deckman’s en el Mogor. We’re dining Valle-style—outdoors, a cool breeze off the Pacific, local snapper roasted over live fire, and flan for dessert. The latter prompts a lively discussion of the pros and cons of jiggly food: “Oh, it so creeps me out,” Kimberly Olson, one of the chefs, says. “Flan, panna cotta, any of that stuff.” “Seriously?” “Seriously.” “Personally, I’m fine with jiggly food,” Bayless says, and somehow this results in him being dubbed “Mister Jiggly” for the rest of the trip.

Then—bang!—it’s morning. Breakfast is at La Cocina de Doña Esthela: dried beef pounded with tomatoes, onions, and peppers (machaca); lamb braised for hours, roasted, and shredded (borrego tatemado); beans (Bayless: “The beans northerners prefer in Mexico are the lighter colored beans. In southern Mexico, people prefer black beans.”); spectacular homemade tortillas; gorditas with chorizo; corn pancakes with honey ... We hit the bus in a total food coma, and it’s time to taste more wine.

问这个问题，什么aboutthis “new Napa” comparison? Camillo Magoni, head winemaker at L.A. Cetto for 49 years and now proprietor of his own eponymous winery, shrugs. “Why do we have to compare to something? We have enough strengths on our own! There’s no region that’s similar to Valle.”

这种独特性在葡萄酒中表现出来，就像他的胡椒红赤霞珠融合在一起，侍酒师莱斯利·拉鲁·拉亚搏电竞蒙特（Leslie Larue Lamont）在莱尼亚·布拉瓦（LeñaBrava）的玻璃杯中倒了。它以山谷风格强调：果实的红色和活泼的，主要是未烤的白色，由各种不同的葡萄品种制成。“这么多事情在这里成长，”玛格尼说。“我从1967年开始尝试新品种，但我仍然是。我们仍在发展。”

It's high noon,外面在Traslomita餐厅，岩石上的黑色蜥蜴在热火上进行俯卧撑。上下，上下，上下。如果您不能出汗，例如，如果您是蜥蜴，那是保持体温下降的好方法。在我的想法中，更好的选择是：坐在薰衣草和迷迭香灌木丛中的长木桌上，坐在大伞下，喝冷相思般的布兰克，对于我们在瓦尔的最后一餐中，玩着“你现在是什么酒吗？”亚搏电竞游戏。

Deann Bayless kicks it off: “I’m feeling super-relaxed. I’d be an unoaked Chardonnay.” Lisa Carlson, red-haired manager of Bayless’ Cruz Blanca brewery, opts for a Sauvignon Blanc “just like this one.” Matt Morin, Leña Brava’s manager: “I’ll take a different direction and say natural wine.” There’s a chorus of outraged “no’s,” and he gets a napkin thrown at him. “What? What’d I say?” he asks, all innocence. Lamont, the sommelier, picks it up again: “Sangiovese rosé. That one we had at Paoloni’s. Because there’s something going on under the surface—like me. I’m not just a dirty blonde!”

When chef Sheyla Alvarado’s food arrives, it’s sublime: insanely freshshrimp and scallops in a habanero-tomatillo aguachile;crisp tortasfilled with crunchy fried squid and lemon mayo; the chef’s signature roast chicken, air-dried overnight so the skin is ultra-crisp; grilled corn with an herbal epazote mayo, dusted with crumbs of Cotija cheese.

TrasLomita is on the same property as the Lomita winery, and owner Fernando Pérez Castro opens bottles, passing them around. The winery’s luscious, strawberry-scented Pagano Grenache proves one of the best we’ve tried on the trip. The whole meal—outdoors, the air clean, the wine flowing, and the food both ambitious and deeply traditional—sums up the allure of Valle. Even if it’s the one time Bayless actually doesn’t have an answer to a question. That happens over a crisp tostada with grilled curvina and cauliflower. Someone asks, “Curvina? What’s that?”

“我知道的是科维那，”贝勒斯说。“我不确定它有另一个名字。”

“Is there something you’d compare it to?”

Bayless pauses, thinks. Everyone waits. Then he shrugs. “Um, a really delicious fish?”

即使有树桩，男人也有很好的时机。