Baja California

The Consejo Mexicano Vitivinícola dates viticulture on the peninsula to the Jesuit Eusebio Kino, who reached Baja California in 1683; the friars planted the Mission grape, and the first harvest is believed to have taken place in 1707. A 2013 proclamation by the Governor of California places Kino's vines at Misión San Bruno, in today's Baja California Sur, which he abandoned within two years.

Bodegas de Santo Tomás was founded in Ensenada in 1888 and is the state's oldest winery. In 1906 some 500 Russian immigrants settled south of Ensenada in what became the Valle de Guadalupe. Angelo Cetto laid the foundations of L.A. Cetto in Tijuana in 1928. Governor Abelardo L. Rodríguez bought Santo Tomás in 1932, and the council dates Mexico's first wine bottling there to 1939. Pedro Domecq began growing wine grapes in Baja California in 1958, and Monte Xanic was founded in the Valle de Guadalupe in 1988.

Mexico's agriculture ministry says the country's wine belt, between 30° and 50° N, crosses Baja California and part of Sonora, and that the country's most important wine region is the Valle de Guadalupe, home to its oldest wine houses and its wine route. SIAP's 2024 overview describes the Mediterranean climate of the region, with warm summers and mild winters, as ideal for viticulture. The industry council's timeline names other growing valleys: Santo Tomás, San Vicente and the area near Tecate. No opened official source describes the valleys' soils or rainfall.

SIAP credits the Mediterranean climate of the Baja California valleys with favouring high-quality grapes, and reports that grapes from the Valle de Guadalupe fetch among the best prices in Mexico, an average of 25,285.67 pesos per tonne. The agriculture ministry describes the valley as the place where the country's oldest wine houses stand. Neither source describes the taste of the wines, and no appellation specification exists that would do so.

Baja California has no wine appellation with published production rules on an opened official page; its valleys are identified by name and by the state wine route. SIAP reports that the Valle de Guadalupe produced 23,911.7 t of industrial grapes, 98.8% of the state total and 31.1% of the national total, and calls its route the best known and most established in the country. The state's long-established producers named by the industry council include Bodegas de Santo Tomás, L.A. Cetto and Monte Xanic, and in 1999 Tres Valles was founded to blend grapes from San Vicente, Santo Tomás and Guadalupe.