The best sweet and smooth Mexican red wines are produced in Valle de Guadalupe (Baja California), Valle de Parras, Valle de Cuatrociénegas (Coahuila), Aguascalientes, Querétaro, Guanajuato and in other national terroirs. The following selection brings together the best sweet and smooth Mexican red wines. See them below.
1. Log House 3V
Casa Madero 3V is among the best Mexican red wines. It is made with Merlot, Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, in Parras, Coahuila. It is fermented in stainless steel tanks and spends 12 to 15 months in French, European, and American oak barrels.
At sight, it presents a purplish color with violet reflections and on the nose, it offers fruits such as blackberry and strawberry, with touches of coffee, cinnamon, chocolate, wet earth, menthol, and toasted wood.
It is a delicate wine with a magnificent balance that reveals its fruity smoothness on the palate. Its versatility makes it suitable for lean red meats, white meats with light sauces, salmon in Jamaica sauce, light pasta, and soft cheeses. Casa Madero is a winery in Valle de Parras, Coahuila’s main terroir for harvesting grapes and aging fine wines.
The valley has cold and well-defined winters, with temperatures below zero degrees Celsius at night and 15 °C during the day. Summers are sunny and warm, rounding off extraordinary conditions for the maturing of the vines.
2. Fruity Cuatro Soles Sparkling Red Wine
This wine from Bodega Cuatro Soles is one of the most convenient among the good and cheap Mexican red wines in the sparkling variety. It costs less than 170 MXN for a 1700 ml bottle. It is a recent addition to the competitive market of Valle Redondo wines, founded in 1964 in Aguascalientes.
The label is a palatable option, even for people who are not heavy wine drinkers. It is an opportunity to enjoy new experiences and flavors, with the accompaniment of Mexican dishes and international cuisine.
With this product, the winery adds 6 labels to the market that include rosé wines, young red wines, and red wines aged in oak barrels. The attractive price is joined by the support of Cetto, a legendary name in Mexican viticulture.
3. Casa Madero Reserva Merlot
The Merlot grape is the main grape harvested in Bordeaux (France) and the second most important worldwide after Cabernet Sauvignon. It produces a wine that stands out for its finesse and smoothness, maintaining aromatic and meaty attributes.
The Casa Madero Reserva Merlot is one of the sweet and smooth Mexican red wines worth trying. It is produced by the Casa Madero winery in Valle de Parras (Coahuila) with 100% merlot.
It presents the characteristic ruby red color in varietal wines. It has a fresh and complex nose, with the presence of red fruits and blackberries and soft notes of red roses.
The Merlot wine, which ages quickly without deteriorating its quality, pleasantly attacks the palate, confirming the sweet and smooth notes it offers on the nose, with persistence and balanced acidity, ending in a pleasant and complex way.
Fans of Mexican food will find that the Casa Madero Reserva Merlot pairs perfectly with Queretaro enchiladas, cecina tacos, and tortilla soup, as well as rajas con queso, pizzas, and roast beef tortas.
4. Baron Balche Dulche
It is a sweet and smooth red from Barón Balché made with a mix of 95% grenache and 5% ruby red. It is aged in French oak barrels for 72 months in Valle de Guadalupe and has high aging potential.
It is a clean and bright wine that shows a ruby red color and presents sweet aromas of strawberries, raspberries, syrup, and honey, with subtleties of noble wood.
On the palate, it is fresh, persistent and with balanced acidity, evoking on the palate the sugary aromas it offers to the nose.
It is almost a dessert and goes very well with cakes and various types of sweets, fruits in syrup, and cheeses such as Edam and Camembert. It is recommended to consume at a temperature between 12 and 15 °C.
Barón Balché has gone in 22 years from being a small family winery that produced homemade wines, to a solid winery with 18 labels (14 reds, 3 whites, and a claret) producing 20,000 cases a year.
5. Santo Tomas Tardo Merlot
Mexican sweet red wine is perfect to close a dinner or celebration accompanied by a delicious dessert. It has a garnet red color with brick red reflections and a complex aroma and notes of black fruit raisins on chocolate, smoked, and wood backgrounds.
In the mouth it attacks with intensity and ripe and balanced tannins, giving a long and slightly sweet finish. Bodegas Santo Tomás was founded in 1888, which means that it has been making excellent wines for more than 130 years on its terroir in the Baja California peninsula.
The vineyards are located in the Santo Tomás Valley. The winery has the Cava de San Antonio de las Minas (at the entrance to Valle de Guadalupe) and the Cava Miramar, the company’s first, in the heart of the city of Ensenada. Both are open to the public for tours and tastings.
6. Hubble Cellars The Sky
El Cielo is a Valle de Guadalupe winery with a line of wines named after astronomers and constellations. Major labels include Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Hubble, Andromeda, Capricorn, and Orion.
The label dedicated to Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer who in 1929 discovered that there was a universe beyond the Milky Way, corresponds to a 100% merlot red wine.
It has a cherry red color with violet tones and it presents itself to the nose with aromas of ripe red fruits, cherries, and currants, with a balsamic nuance. On the palate, it has round and ripe tannins and its best pairing are with roasts, moderately intense cheeses, and pork.
El Cielo was conceived as a comprehensive wine experience that includes a vineyard, a winery, the Suites & Villas boutique hotel, and haute cuisine at its Latitud32 and Polaris restaurants.
The vineyards cover 95 hectares with 14 varietals planted and the winery has the most modern technological resources for the care of the vineyard, the harvest of the grapes, the fermentation, aging, and bottling of the wines.
7. Baron Balche Lamat OR GC
The list of sweet and smooth Mexican red wines is honored with this Barón Balché label.
The Grenache (80%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (20%) vines participate in its production, producing a deep red wine with ruby highlights.
The grenache or Garnacha grape, which carries the greatest weight in the blend, ripens late, concentrating more sugar. It is used in fortified sweet wines.
The Lamat O GC offers notes of blackberries, blackcurrants, and nutmeg on the nose, while on the palate it is sweet in flavor, meaty, and with a lasting aftertaste, with soft and fine tannins.
It is ideal to accompany grilled and grilled meats, foods with fruit sauces, and spaghetti bolognese. The Barón Balché winery was founded in 1997 in Valle de Guadalupe from a 32-hectare vineyard with damaged and abandoned vines, by Don Juan Ríos.
The idea was to produce a homemade wine with a simple distribution network, but the experiment was so successful that now the house’s labels are among the most prestigious in Mexico.
8. Monte Xanic Merlot
This is one of the Mexican red wines with a combination of color, aroma, taste, and aftertaste. It is produced by the Monte Xanic winery, which has 6 ranches in Baja California, 3 in Valle de Guadalupe, and another 3 in Valle de Ojos Negros.
The Monte Xanic Merlot is made with 100% varietal grapes and aged in French oak barrels. It is a wine with a clean violet tone, bright and with a closed layer, fresh and intense on the nose.
On the palate, it is warm, juicy, and with well-integrated tannins with an enveloping structure. It offers aromas of fresh red fruits, black currants, fine wood, cinnamon, and menthol, with balsamic notes with a background of cocoa and red pepper.
The pleasures in the mouth are reminiscent of those perceived in the olfactory phase, expanding to a range that includes blackberries, vanilla, coffee, cocoa, and coconut, with good balance and persistence. It is recommended to pair with red meats, barbecues, kid, roasted oily fish, and pasta.
9. Generous Ferriño Wine
Fortified or fortified wines are particularly sweet due to the greater amount of sugars that are not fermented, although their alcohol content is higher.
The Ferriño Generous Wine, produced by Bodegas Ferriño in the Cuatrociénegas Valley, Coahuila, has an alcoholic strength of 15% and comes in equal parts from Carignana (Cariñena) and Tokay grapes.
The Carignana grape ripens late and requires warm days to fully ripen, while the Torkay, of Hungarian origin, produces very sweet wines.
The Ferriño Generous Wine is aged for 2 years in oak barrels and has potential aging of 10 years, with the advantage that it is well preserved for up to 2 years after opening the bottle. It presents an intense ruby red color and is manifested in the nose with caramel and cherries. On the palate, it is fruity with hints of chocolate.
It is recommended to serve between 15 and 18 °C. It is one of the good Mexican wines for an aperitif before eating and to accompany dessert, especially tartlets, chocolate cakes, dried fruit candies, and baked apples.
10. A. Cetto Merlot Classic Line
LA Cetto Merlot Classic Line is among the best sweet and smooth Mexican red wines, due to its careful aging from Merlot grapes. It is violet-red in color, bright and clean to the eye, and aromas of red and fresh fruits when it manifests itself on the nose, highlighting currants and raspberries.
On the palate, it confirms its sweet fruity evocations with soft and firm tannins. It is an excellent wine to serve at a temperature between 14 and 16 °C, accompanying roast meat, sausages, soft cheeses, and vegetables. This wine was the big news for the historic Guadeloupe winery when it celebrated its 85th anniversary in 2013. LA Cetto has had plantations of the versatile merlot varietal in Valle de Guadalupe since 1973 and the nectars of the fruit have been turned into extraordinary wines for 5 decades.
The Don Luis Merlot Reservada Selection became 1999 one of the great events of Mexican viticulture.
11. Sweet Sherry Type Generous Wine – Ferriño
It is one of the best Mexican wines in its category, another product of Bodegas Ferriño in the Cuatrociénegas Valley of Coahuila. It comes from a mix of palomino, Malaga, and Lenoir grapes and spends 12 to 24 months in oak barrels, finishing with 15% alcohol content.
Its potential storage is 10 years with the bottle closed, well stored, and in the right environment.
It is red with brick tones and a perfumed aroma with subtle touches of wood. It is sweet on the palate with slight fruity tones and goes down very well as an aperitif before eating or as a companion to desserts, pairing wonderfully with the 3 milk cakes.
It is used to make the Sherry chicken cocktail which is reputed to cure fierce hangovers.
The Bodegas Ferriño started in 1860 when the immigrant Miguel Ferriño arrived in Cuatrociénegas and found the valley very similar to his native terroir in the Italian Campania. He started out making aguardiente and grape brandy, beginning the production of fortified wines in 1917.
12. Precious Gift Hacienda de Letras
Hacienda de Letras is a hydro-warm winery in the Montegrande area, Aguascalientes. Their Precious Gift wine is a semi-sweet red wine made from a mix of 60% Aliático and 40% Moscatel. Aliático is an Italian varietal also called red muscat with which Napoleon Bonaparte’s favorite wine was produced.
Precious Gift wine is certainly a beautiful gift to the senses of sight, smell, and taste. It is pale red or intense pink with violet hues, clean on the eyes, and medium body. It leaves a moderately aromatic, sweet, and fruity intensity on the nose, in which unripe red fruits such as strawberry and raspberry are discovered.
It attacks softly and with sweetness in the mouth, leaving a sweet taste without astringency and with a markedly fruity medium persistence. It is recommended to uncork it to enjoy desserts made with red fruits and dark chocolate. It also goes down perfect as a digestive after eating. It should be served at 8-10 °C.
