Baja Meets NYC with Mauricio Cantú

How many dream jobs start like this? Mauricio Cantú had been living in Ensenada, Baja California, for more than 30 years when he and four friends began making homemade wine for fun. Their bottles were intended solely for their own consumption, but, as wine tends to do, it began flowing freely among a wider circle of friends. “People liked our wine so much that they began asking us to sell it,” Cantú said. Now that passion project has turned into a successful business, one that Cantú will be showing off at the Baja Meets NYC wine and food festival happening in February in New York City. 

The compliments must have been flattering for the amateur winemakers, but they were hardly enough to propel Cantú and his pals into a full-fledged vineyard-winery venture. The motivation for turning their leisure-time hobby into a full-time career came from the joy and fun of the winemaking process itself. “The activity [of winemaking] is really pleasant,” said Cantú, “and once you start, you want to learn and do more and more. It was inevitable that we’d involve ourselves to the point that it would become such an important part of our professional lives.”

Elsewhere, the “inevitability” of becoming a winemaker might seem to be a bit of an exaggeration, but as Cantú explains, the culture of Ensenada is steeped in wine, both the making of it and the drinking of it. “There are vineyards here that are more than 100 years old,” Cantú says about Ensenada, “and we all grew up accustomed to our parents drinking wine at home.”

Cantú’s Cava Aragón 126 hasn’t reached its centennial mark yet; in fact, it’s just a few years shy of a decade. But since Cantú and his friends founded Cava Aragón in 2007, when they were making wine in a garage, both Cantú and his cava have matured considerably. Cantú developed his bona fides by taking professional winemaking courses. Now, just seven years into the winemaking business, Cava Aragón produces four different varietals: Sauvignon Blanc-Chardonnay, Tempranillo-Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Sauvignon-Sangiovese, and a Nebbiolo. Each of the wines has garnered at least one award, and its 2011 Madera 5 Nebbiolo was rated 88 by Wine Enthusiast, described by the reviewer as a “powerful, tannic yet sophisticated Nebbiolo that should improve with more time in the bottle.”

Next, Cantú scales up… 

The same reviewer noted that the Nebbiolo demonstrated a complex aroma and flavor profile, qualities that Cantú says are attributable to Ensenada’s unique terroir. Each of Baja’s valleys has its own properties, he notes, but Cava Aragón 126 prefers grapes from the San Vicente Valley. Those grapes, Cantú said, produce wines that are easy to drink and well-balanced, with both fruity and woody notes, but neither more dominant than the other.

But what makes Cava Aragón 126’s wines most special, Cantú argues, isn’t found in the land; it’s found in the friendship shared among Cantú and his co-founders. “The majority of wineries in Baja California are boutique [in size and production scale],” he explains, “and you can find exceptional wines, wines where the winemaker has lived every moment of the process [of winemaking], and the results are magnificent. But what sets our wines apart is that this is a project of passion among five friends.”

Cantú is thrilled to be representing Cava Aragón 126 and Ensenada at Baja Meets NYC later this month. “New York is a city where people drink wine from all around the world, and we want them to come and learn a bit more about our wines. It’s important to us that people learn what’s happening in Ensenada. I’m very proud to be part of a movement where the common denominator is that we all want to make better wine, and it’s gratifying to see our wine being recognized as a world-class product,” Cantú said.

Cantú is scheduled to participate in four events at Baja Meets NY. The first is a “Meet the Winemakers” event at Octavio Paz Gallery on February 27; the second is a paired wine dinner with Chef Javier Plascencia at Roberto Santibanez’s Fonda, third is a wine tasting at Casa Mezcal on March 1st; and the last is an eight-course dinner by all Baja chefs paired with wine, to be held at Hotel Americano on March 1. Get your tickets here.