Sometimes in life your timing is off and fate is not on your side, while other times you get lucky and have a great experience you weren’t expecting. I got the latter when I made a trip down to Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo recently. There was a big one-night gastronomy festival going at the end of the beach one night, then the night before that was a wine discovery night at Thompson Zihuatanejo.
So my introduction to the new Thompson Zihuatanejo post-renovations was a lovely evening under string lights tasting Mexican wine from Valle de Guadalupe, Guanajuato, and Queretaro. I’ll get to that in a minute, but meanwhile check out the video above for a tour of the property itself.
I have been to this property several times since we launched Luxury Latin America, when it went under several different names, but it has been part of Thompson Hotels all this decade. It is now under the Hyatt umbrella, especially handy if you’re a part of their loyalty program, and the main difference in the renovations and refreshes is that the decor has gotten more contemporary. What hasn’t changed at all is the awesome location on a lovely stretch of sand. See our full review of Thompson Zihuatanejo here.
Wine Tastings and a Ceniza Dinner in Zihuatanejo
Thompson Zihuatanejo was hosting an informal wine tasting that featured companies that were all new to me except for Dos Buhos, one of the wineries I featured in this article on wineries close to San Miguel de Allende to visit. Their wines seem to get better each year, plus it’s trying to run its operations in a sustainable, biodynamic way. I got to revisit their 1524 label (the name a reference to the first year wine was produced in Mexico) rosé and white.
I also checked out the others that were exhibiting there, though I could feel their pain in trying to do an outdoor wine tasting right by the beach, outdoors, in a hot and humid setting where people were sweating and so was the wine. Ideally you wouldn’t be keeping red wine on ice because it’s not going to be the ideal temperature that cold, but then again, it’s not even close if you leave it out when the sundown temperatures are still around 90F degrees.
So I didn’t try much red wine until it was time for dinner at Ceniza, when the red rolled out as we were having smoky brisket. Meanwhile, it made a lot of sense to taste wines like this from Xolo, a Baja label.
I made one discovery that I’m going to try out in person at some point soon. I live in Guanajuato State, so I’ve tried nearly all the wineries there, including the ones near Dolores Hidalgo and San Miguel de Allende. Even one high on a mountain between Guanajuato City and Leon. One state over is Queretaro though, which produces a lot of its own award-winning still wines and sparkling ones.
After tasting a few from Abrepuertas, I’ve got that winery on my list for a visit next time I’m in the region. The artistic labels are fare more than an afterthought and the wrapper at the top is actually an informative little text packet about what you’re drinking.
The parent company name is Vinaltura and they have a view of the Bernal rock monolith from their vineyard. These aren’t featured on the company website though, which is only in Spanish, so apparently this is a new brand extension. The wine scene is Mexico is growing fast and it’s hard to keep track, so an event like this is fun for just seeing what is out there if nothing else.
After some sips with the company reps, we had dinner at the Thompson Zihuatanejo night restaurant called Ceniza, an outdoor affair by the beach, where we had a food pairing menu matching some of these wines with different courses. My personal favorites of the night were the grilled oysters and the pumpkin with tahini and black pepper, but it was a well-orchestrated sampling of flavors. If they’re running something like this when you’re there, a chance for the chef to show up, then book a table.
See our full review of Thompson Zihuatanejo Resort.
See more here on what to do in Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo.
