Slow Baja - Travel Talk With Slow Baja Exploring Malagon Winery

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

In today's travel talk with Slow Baja, we meet Anton Jimenez from Malagon Winery. In our conversation, we discuss the winery's history, which dates back to Russian settlers, their award-winning wines from sixty-five-year-old vines, and a new craft beer brewing project. Ted and I stayed in Casa Azul, and I was delighted by the sweet sound of nature. We arrived in the evening to the yips of coyotes, and in the morning, the cooing of doves --and an occasional rooster's crow provided the soundtrack as we devoured Lazaro's chilaquiles. Ranked as one of the top best Bed and Breakfasts in the Valle de Guadalupe, the four-room Mission-style hacienda was a perfect spot for some tranquilo time. Anton says, "Malagon Winery is in the middle of everything and away from everything." We couldn't agree more. For more information and inquiries, check out their website here.

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful,

beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of D. detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at benchmarkmaps.com. In today's travel talk with Slow Baja, I'm happy to bring you a brief conversation with my new friend Anton Jimenez talking about Malagon Winery in the Valle de Guadalupe. But before we get started, I've got to say thanks to my Mexico venture, Amigo Ted Donovan, for arranging our stay.

As I've mentioned before, we have a division of labor here at Slow Baja. I handle all the vehicle prep, sponsor fundraising, and Ted handles the lodging, loading, and navigating. It's a huge relief for me just to focus on the driving, knowing that Ted has everything else covered. He booked our stay at Malagon Winery, and for that, he gets my heaping dose of gratitude this week. All right, thanks for listening, and on to today's show about Malagon Winery with Anton Jimenez. Say hello, and tell me your name, please. Anton Jimenez, I love adventure. I love to take vacations, right in motorcycles.

Ooh, with a good coffee. And nothing better than tequila on the sunset. It's Slow Baja, it's travel talk, and I'm at the beautiful Malagon winery, Venetos Malagon. And I'm here with Anton Jimenez, and we've had a lovely breakfast of Chilaquiles that Lazaro prepared for us, and the birds are chirping, and it's a beautiful sunny day. And I just wanted to get on to, wow, this is quite a set. Tell me about this beautiful winery. Well. And hello, by the way.

Yeah, how you doing? It's Lobaja. Welcome to Malagon Winery. We're glad to have you here spending the night with us at the Asienda and enjoying the Rico Saboroso breakfast with Lazaro. He prepares a really good breakfast. I hope you enjoy it this morning. I did.

It was really quite lovely. Yeah, and as you notice, Malagon is in the middle of everything away from everything. which is a really nature-surrounded scenery. And Malagoon Winery has been producing wines for almost 30 years and also providing hospitality. Visitors from many different places in the last five years has been trying to make people stay a little longer, get more involved with the community,

get to know more people from Valle, in Guadalupe. So your visit is a little richer with experiences, not just for gastronomic purpose, but also the people. Experience with the people. Well, you said something that really summed it up. You're close to everything and away from everything. Yeah. And I thought that was amazing last night to come right from dinner at Deckman's, drive down the dirt road here and get on to the property.

And there's nothing but coyotes. There's the, there's a little, the stars are, there's stars are out, you know, but there's nothing ruining the view. It's, there's no big bright lights. You're not hearing the boom, boom, boom, boom of somebody's party down the way. It's amazing how close it is, yet how far away it is. And so, can you give me a little history of the Malagons and the family and how this valley, how they found this spot?

Yeah, well, actually, the first families here in this area were Russians at the end of the 1800s, beginning of the 1900s. Malagong family purchased the land from them in the 80s. And it wasn't until almost 2000, that Seigneur Malagón, the actually owner, purchased all the land from their relatives, ankles and family, and decided to reactivate the winemaking from the land, which the Russians brought in.

One of the plants, the varieties of the, of the vineyards are Grenache, which is like 81 years old plant. And Signor Malagone brought it back to life. Start doing the irrigation system, doing some experimentation, and he became a winemaker. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja bound insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at.

Baja bound.com. That's Bajabound.com serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey folks, you know, I'm always telling you, ask your doctor if Baja is right for you. Well, I don't know what your doctor's going to say, but I want to let you know right now, it's the open enrollment period for the 2023 Baja XL rally. That's right. If you need a little Baja care, you got to get in right now during the open enrollment period for the 2023 Baja XL rally. February 17th through 26th, it's 3,000 miles in 10 days. It's a minimal assistance rally. That means there's no rescue trucks or no medical helicopters or no travel guides. You get to rely on your own wits and resources and probably the other 150 or 180 vehicles that are in this rally

with you who are always darn nice and willing to tow you out or give you a ride to the auto parts store or the mechanic or whatever you need. But hey, the Baja XL is open to anyone by any So if it's street legal, you can drive it. There's a competition class. If you want to get in and solve geotagging treasure hunt questions all day and all night, there's the 4x4 touring class that Slow Baja does, where we just pull out our benchmark map first thing in the morning, get some a chalk, get some eggs, some hot coffee, take a look at where the route ends that day and figure out what the most scenic, squiggly dirt roads are on our map. And that's how we do it.

do it. Again, there's no judging. It's a heck of a lot of fun. It's a major league adventure, and it will certainly, certainly cure your symptoms of mild, seasonal lack of adventuring. All right. Ask your doctor if Baja is right for you. The Baja XL rally more info at BajaXL.org or feel free to DM me through slowbaha.com or the Slow Baja Instagram or Facebook sites for more info. And you have a tasting room here and you also have some brewing going on, yeah? Yeah, yeah, it is. So you're creating wine and you're creating beer.

Can you tell me a little bit about the two, the varieties that you, you don't need to tell me about cases per year, but maybe you tell me a little bit about if somebody wants to take a little slow Baja off the beaten path down here, they're going to see a beautiful church that was also built by the Malagone family, you know, no? It was donated. Donated, okay. Donated, okay.

Church building. And so you come right in the gate and the tasting center is there? Yeah, sure. Let me tell you a little bit about because right now I've been for the last three months participating in the tasting experience. We came out with a new experience every year and this year we have four wines. The first one is a rosé, granage rosae, which is like a granddaughter from the original plant. It's 12 years old.

And then we go to three red wines. Two of those are winner's award winners of gold metal. One is a Petitira, which is really, really good. It's amazing. The aroma is strong, but the flavor is smooth. And the other two are mix, which is one is 80% carbonate, 20% of violo. And the last one is Equa, a mix of the house. I'm pretty sure if you guys come and visit us, you're going to get surprised.

when you try that wine. But the main thing is the people that work in the ranch. We have Margarita, Maggie. She's been in the ranch for many years. She's been in the harvesting process, taking care of the plants, and cleaning the flowers area, helping around the asienda,

but also on the tasting room, sharing with the visitors, the experience about living and working in a ranch that is producing good wine. Lazzaro, which is the one who prepared the breakfast for us this morning, a really good guy. He helped us in the asienda, he cooks, and also help the visitors with anything they can do. And Freddie. Freddy is like the mechanic engineer, the one with the tractor and all that, but all of them are

involved in this, and all because Senor Malagon is being created a really good team of people here, that you will find the experience when you come to business. that was my first experience. Of course, Lazaro is just all warmth and he's a big happy guy. He's a big happy guy. He made us feel welcome immediately. And then the breakfast this morning, I'm just going to tell you, the chila quila is terrific. It's not something I usually eat for breakfast, and it's, I'm set for the day. It was a hearty, wonderful breakfast and no must, no fuss, and Lazzaro dealt it out in large portions, and it was very tasty. Oh, because you like it. Yeah. And again, you know, it's beautiful and sunny here, and you really do feel

like you're away, but within five minutes down your road or two minutes down your road, I'm right back on the main drag. Yes, back at the billis. Yeah, well, I don't know if you, if you, you got here yesterday right before sunset time. It's kind of quiet, like you were saying before. At night or early in the morning, you can hear the coyotes. The birds wake you up. There's a lot of birds around, but the main thing is the open space. You know, you get here with the vision of Bayo Guadalupe, but when you get to Malagoon winery, you find a more open space kind of place, a real working active ranch, with good wines and good people, in plenty of space to come down if you're bringing a big RV vehicle, if you come in an overlanding vehicles, pulling the trailer with toys,

plenty of space to park and in a safe way because we're safe environment. Yeah, they closed. They told us that when the, what time the gate closed, and if we got here after that, how to open the gate without problems but to close it behind us. And how many rooms do you have here? We have four. You have four rooms. Two suites and two regular rooms. Okay. Ted and I are in one of the regular rooms, and it was quite lovely. Had a wonderful shower this morning, and that's always saying something in Baja. You don't always get a warm shower wherever you're staying. So that was lovely to get a warm shower. What I'd like to, impress upon here is it doesn't feel commercial. It feels like I'm in a friend's home. It feels like I have a friend with a ranch and I could come here and stay and it just feels very comfortable. And I think that that's somebody here is doing something right to make me feel that way immediately, whether that's Lazzaro's orders or the way he approaches life.

But I just want to say that Malagone, Venatos Malagon, Malagon winery, slow Baja, up I hope you check it out online folks make a reservation come and stay for a day or two or three use it as a base to see the rest of the Valle. Sure any time you guys want to visit us come over. What's the best way for people to to find out about the ranch? It is online right now. We have Malabon Winery.com, but you also can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram same thing, Malabon Winery. I think in Facebook we are on the Villeguels Malabon, Valle, Guadalupe. that's in Facebook and each of those three options you can send us a message contact direct and we'll provide any information you need even though if you're not staying with us you can call and ask for what's going on in Baye we are

in the middle of the village almost so we know we're how to direct you to go to the grocery store get ice cream with the locals maybe a fest going on with the Native Americans around the ranch in in the right season, we might point you over so you can enjoy your visit to buy in a more enjoyable way. Well, Anton, thanks for spending a few minutes with Slow Baja this morning. It's been a beautiful day. We need to get down the road. But again, one more time, folks, Malagon Venetos, Malagon Winery, Slow Baja approved. Check it out. All right, guys. See you soon. Have I told you about my friend True Miller? You've probably heard the podcast, but let me tell you,

Her vineyard, Adobe Guadalupe Winery, is spectacular. From the breakfast at her communal table, bookended to an intimate dinner at night, their house-bred Azteca horses, Solomon, the horseman will get you on a ride that'll just change your life. The food, the setting, the pool, it's all spectacular. AdobeGuadalupe.com. For appearing on Slow Baja today, our guests will receive the beautiful benchmark map 72-page Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. go to Baja without this, folks. You never know when your GPS is going to crap out, and you're going to want a great map in your lap. Trust me.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I enjoyed Lazaro's amazing chile-kiles. As Anton says, Malagon Winery is in the middle of everything, away from everything. I couldn't agree more. Check them out if you need a tasted tron kilo, and please tell him Slow Baja sent you. All right. Hey, if you're still listening, take a moment. Do me a solid. Rate the show on Apple or Spotify. Hit that five star. Say something nice. Tell people why you listen. And do share the show with the Baja pal. Thanks this week to Jamie Womagooth, Mark Becktold, my good pal Kevin Garmston, who came with me on the Norah Mexican 1000, and my new friend, Kendall Jennings for dropping tacos in the tank. I really appreciate it, folks. So thanks to those guys

for making the drop. And to my sponsor, Baja Bound Insurance, you know, I have an affiliate program with Baja Bound now. You can buy your Baja Bound insurance right through my sponsor page at SlowBaha.com. You get the same great price and they drop a taco in my tank. And I really have to say thanks. It's a surprise every time that happens and I greatly appreciate it. So please, if you're going to Mexico, buy your Baja Bound insurance right through Slowbaha.com, click the sponsor page, click the Baja Bound logo. You go right to the site, same great price and I get the taco surprise. You know, it may be a little late to get a slow Baja surprise under the tree, but I've got modern trucker hats in stock, all three styles. Dad hats are in stock, not just for dads, of course.

Mrs. Sarah Roach Martin at the Roach Coach. She looks great in her slow Baja dad hat when she's hanging at Cow Patty or in Port Acidos. Black and white T-shirts are in stock. Black sweatshirts are in stock. So show your support for Slow Baja. Buy some Mertie. All right, enough of my begging. I'll be back with an interesting Baja conversation before you know it. And in the words of Mary McGee's Baja-loving pal, Steve McQueen, Baja's life, anything that happened before or after is just waiting.