The Vinos Plata Estate:
- Erick Plata of Vinos Plata is the kind of discovery you make on your 20th trip to Valle de Guadalupe that makes you realize just how little you know about it. How could someone so well-connected and making such incredible wines manage to fly under your radar? Anyway, we found him and now we are with him for good. His wines are an epiphany that you have to try to believe. 2020 marks the first time Plata's wines have left Mexico, and once the word spreads about what's in these bottles, they are going to be as hard to locate as if they had never arrived. Legend in the making.
Erick gets his grapes from several different vineyard sites:
- Valle de Guadalupe - Sandy soil at an elevation of 900 ft - average vine age 15 years - (Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc, and Merlot) - 5 hectares.
-Ojos Negros - Clay soil at an elevation of 1,400 ft - average vine age 15 years - (Tempranillo, Merlot, and Syrah) - 1 hectare
- Valle de San Vicente - 3 vineyard sites:
- Chardonnay and Grenache - Sandy soil at an elevation of 1,200 ft - average vine age 35 years - dry farmed- 5 hectares.
- Tempranillo and Syrah - Clay soil at an elevation of 800 ft - average vine age 30 years - 10 hectares.
- Grenache - Clay soils at an elevation of 800 ft - average vine age 5 years - 2 hectares.
- Erick learned how to make wine in apprenticeship to a couple of the legends and pioneers of the winemaking industry in Mexico - Hugo D'Acosta and Cruz Macias. At 10 years of training and running, Erick is one of the most sensitive and inquisitive winemakers to be found in the region. An encyclopedia of knowledge already, he's the kind of personality whose mind is constantly oriented towards what he has yet to learn; a category Erick himself would tell you expands the closer you get to it.
- If there is a wine that fits the "garagiste" definition in the Valle, it's Vinos Plata. His operation carries with it all of the connotations of finding an absolute diamond in the rough. Despite the size and complete lack of pretense of his operation, Erick is making wines in Mexico that are some of the most deserving of world-wide recognition of any to be found.
Total production: 3 wines, 1,200 cases