On Saturday December 3rd, the Bajamar Christmas Bazaar 2011 took place. This annual event brings arts, crafts, food and other worthy-to-see regional attractions. From wine to fish tacos, from jewelry to hand-made dolls, there surely is something for everyone.
Baja Real Estate Group and Naos Living hosted a networking mixer by Fidelity National Title De Mexico having AMAR conference attendees as guests on November 16th, 2011.
Guests enjoyed fine wine from Baron Balche, a winery from the Guadalupe valley and local cheese and appetizers while mingling and mixing in Naos’ luxurious showroom.
For more photos visit http://www.naosliving.com or http://www.bajarealestategroup.net
He’s traveled with the King of Jordan, the President of Peru, the Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Jamaica…. Now, Peter Greenberg joins President Felipe Calderón, one of the most dynamic leaders of Latin America, for a history-making television special.
Even though demolition at the San Ysidro Port of Entry will be closing as many as five re-entry lanes at a time in the next few months, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Thursday that traffic may actually flow faster through the busiest border crossing in the Western Hemisphere.
Traffic will be “channeled” into fewer lanes, the pace shouldn’t slacken because Customs will be opening additional inspection booths at each gateway to process two vehicles at a time. The so-called “stacked booths” are being used at other border crossings according to officials and have proven efficient.
San Ysidro is undergoing a massive, three-phase, $577-million reconstruction which requires the contractors to tear down existing structures that sit directly over the top of the 24 lanes of wall-to-wall, bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Since June, the Colorado-based Hansel Phelps Construction Co. has been “surgically” dismantling the sprawling administration complex above the traffic. Central to the process is a towering yellow crane that dominates the border landscape.
Starting at the end of August through Thanksgiving, the project enters a particularly tricky phase as remaining shell of the building must come down. To accomplish this, processing booth areas will be closed off as each section is torn down, affecting up to five lanes.
When it comes to figuring out which lanes are functional, Customs and Border Protection will try to remove the guess work for border travelers. A traffic engineer in Tijuana has been contracted to design a strategy for channeling vehicles to the “stacked booth” gateways.
By the end of August, Customs will have operating 10 gateways with “stacked booths” to process two vehicles simultaneously.
When completed, the reconfiguration and expansion of San Ysidro will have 62 northbound inspection booths, expanded processing facilities, a dedicated bus lane and express lanes for the “trusted traveler” programs – SENTRI and Ready Lane vehicles.
This first phase is fully funded and is on track to be completed by the summer of 2014, officials say.
The second phase, which includes the construction of the new administration building and pedestrian route and Phase 3, the realignment and expansion of I-5 south with expanded capacity and a transit center on the Mexican side of the border are as yet unfunded.
If you are thinking in moving to Mexico, don’t think more act today. We Can Help. Call today 858-433-0561 or email Miguel Sedano info@rentinginmexico.com the perfect home is waiting for you.
Written By Lorena Mancilla – San Diego Reader
Imagine a valley filled with vineyards surrounded by olive trees. The weather is dry and warm and there’s hardly any wind. There are only a couple of paved roads and people mostly walk or drive on dirt roads bordered with shrubbery. The sounds and sights of the country are subtle: birds, mountains, desert plants — wait, there’s also drama: a turkey vulture devours a squirrel. Oh, well.
Valle De Guadalupe
One could be standing in California or it could be Italy, but this place is Mexico; actually, it’s Ensenada, but without the breeze of the Pacific. The place is Valle de Guadalupe, a region with a Mediterranean climate where 80 percent of Mexican wine is produced. The valley is the same size as Napa Valley, but Napa has 40,000 acres of vineyards. Compared to other regions, Mexico’s production is still small. In all of the different wine-producing regions of Baja, including San Vicente Valley, Guadalupe Valley, and Santo Tomas Valley, only 6200 acres are used for wine production.
The history of Guadalupe Valley has been touched superficially by few historians; the original population was indigenous, mainly Kumeyaay. There were also Dominican missionaries, but they didn’t stay for long. In 1904, a group of Molokan Russians colonized parts of the valley and with them came the first grapevines.
During the 1950s, groups of farmers demanded farming land from the government and created ejidos. The ejidos were groups that collectively owned land, which was given to them by the government in order to promote agriculture. At the beginning of the ejido era in the valley, they grew alfalfa, wheat, and other crops. In 1927, an Italian named Angelo Cetto came to Baja California and started to explore the valley. He grew different kinds of grapes and founded a company that mainly focused on the production of brandy. In the 1940s, Cetto produced one commercial wine, but it wasn’t until the late 1980s that the company began concentrating on wine. The serious wine industry in Baja is fairly young, 20 years old. read more »
Lured by spicy quail, tuna ceviche, and Mexico’s best fish tacos, T+L lights out for Ensenada—and from there, things just go south.
From May 2010 By Peter Jon Lindberg
Culinary Tour of Baja, Mexico
Ensenada and the nearby Valle de Guadalupe, in northern Baja, are known outside Mexico for three things: the burgeoning local wine scene, which has been hyped ad infinitum; the food, which hasn’t been hyped enough; and the spectacularly bad roads, which everyone warns you about, though you never fully believe them. Really, you think, how bad could they be? And then one night in the gathering dark you take an innocent shortcut across the valley and drive your rented Hyundai into a riverbed. A dry riverbed, but a riverbed all the same. You and your equally baffled companion spend 40 minutes spinning the car’s wheels in what might as well be quicksand, then digging frantically, then panicking, then digging and spinning some more, until finally you resolve to abandon the car and hike the two miles back to the highway—suitcases sinking in gravel, sand filling your socks. And as the coyotes wail in the ink-black hills you decide that you probably should have paid more attention to that part about the roads.
“Ah, the Baja shortcut!” said our innkeeper, Phil Gregory, when, at the conclusion of said ordeal, he collected us and our dusty belongings from the side of Highway 3. “Never a good idea!” Severe rains the previous week, our host explained, had caused the river to flood, washing away a whole chunk of the road we were on. Those tire tracks I’d followed across the sandy riverbed—believing we were still on course—had been left by a backhoe, dispatched to repair the road. No one had bothered to post a sign, let alone erect a fence. “Honestly, this happens all the time,” Gregory said as we rattled down the inn’s rutted dirt driveway. He meant this to be reassuring. “But let’s get you settled, pour you some wine, and we’ll retrieve your car in the morning!”
Gregory’s tone was oddly chipper—maybe this did happen all the time? After showering off the dust, we sampled the inn’s own Tempranillo beside a crackling mesquite fire in the lounge. Not the smoothest specimen, but it worked: two glasses later I gave up worrying about the Hyundai. read more »
In Tequila's Home, a Wine Region Comes of Age - The Guadalupe Valley
The first time I went to Mexican wine country, I found myself digging my car out of a muddy river bed at 11 at night. It speaks volumes about the area’s charm that this didn’t deter me from a second trip, four months later. This time, I destroyed one of my sedan’s axles in a pothole and popped a tire.
And yet, I still plan to visit again. Next time, I’ll bring an S.U.V.
Wine tasting in the Guadalupe Valley of Mexico is an adventure sport; not an endeavor for the weak of will. There is the matter of the roads. They are dirt-surfaced, they frequently require that you drive straight through riverbeds and, thanks to a winter of record storms, they currently resemble the pitted surface of the moon. Then there are the obstacles to actually tasting wines: many wineries require appointments, and a working knowledge of Spanish is definitely an asset.
Persevere, however, and you could find yourself at the bucolic ranch of Antonio Badán, sampling a generous glass of elegant Mogor-Badán Chasselas with the winemaker himself. Mr. Badán’s tasting room consists of a folding table in a corner of the small concrete building where he produces his wines. The chairs are wobbly; the walls are bare. From the tasting room, you can look over the vegetable gardens, the henhouse and the grazing cattle to the budding grapevines on the valley floor. read more »
By Steve Dryden
Grape Vineyards in the Guadalupe Valley
The 2010 vintage is off and running with a large dose of rainfall soaking the soil and roots in vineyards across Valle de Guadalupe and other grape growing regions in Baja California, Mexico. So far we’ve received an above average level of moisture in a normally drought ridden region, thus bringing extra hope to growers and winemakers for this vintage. Most of the vines still remain in a dormant condition, but bud swelling is evident and it appears that an early bud-break may be upon us soon.
In addition, the winter weather in the valley (elevation avg. is 1,100 feet) has been mild and warmer than usual. Many vineyard managers and workers have already pruned their vines or are in the process of doing so. The only bad news is there are lots of weeds and wild grasses this year, but the surplus of water is a real blessing, making most wine industry personnel excited about 2010.
Highway construction in the valley continues to progress, but at times it seemed we went back in time about 100 years. This wet winter allowed locals and guests the opportunity to ford rivers, streams and large puddles of water as we toured the valley in search of wine, food and adventure. Now we know what it might have been like when the early settlers and the Russian Molokans hauled grain and goods to San Diego with horses and wagons. In 1925, it was a three day trip to downtown San Diego with teams of horses and wagons navigating several rivers between the valley, Tecate and Jamul. The good news is that the new road that traverses the wine country along Highway 3 should be completed by May 2010. It’s open now in some parts, but be ready for road hazards, mud, and dramatic bumps in the various (unmarked) surfaces of dirt and pavement. read more »
Written By: Omar Millán Gonález
It’s wine festival time on La Ruta del Vino
VALLE DE GUADALUPE, Baja California — One hour south of Tijuana, there’s a magical place that for 120 years has captured the flavor of this land.
It’s called La Ruta del Vino (The Wine Route), a road that starts in El Sauzal, outside of Ensenada, and connects to the valleys of Guadalupe, San Antonio de las Minas and Calafia, wine-producing regions where almost 250 producers grow grapes.
In these valleys, and in San Vicente and the Valley of Santo Tomás, 27 miles south of Ensenada, 126 million liters of wine are produced every year. They represent 90 percent of the table wines produced in Mexico, according to Sistema Producto Vid, an association of wine producers in the region.
The bucolic landscape is beautiful year-round, but in August, the grape harvest begins and all the local producers stage their harvest festivals. The area becomes a constant party, revolving around wine. There are wine contests, dancing, grand banquets, concerts, bullfights and guide tours of the wineries the vineyards.
Santo Tomás, founded in 1888, and LA Cetto, founded in 1930, are the oldest vineyards in the region, and their wines have reached countries with long oenological traditions, including France and Italy. read more »
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