After you’ve seen the sights and experienced the city in San Miguel de Allende, how about a countryside break in the grape vines at a luxury wine lodge? Head to Tres Raices and you get your own swanky bungalow with a terrace near the stunning pool and access to a great restaurant and winery.
I headed to Tres Raices thinking it would be a nice little business that’s growing organically in obscurity. What I found instead was a full-blown winery with a storeroom set up for 2,000 barrels, 98 acres of vines, and some of the most stunning modern architecture in the region. This is clearly a well-funded operation that is ready to blast into the bigtime.
The few people outside Mexico who know much about Mexican wine probably assume all of it comes from the Baja Norte area around Ensenada. This is indeed the main production area, but just as all U.S. wine doesn’t come from California, Mexico has several other wine regions that deserve a tasting. Two states that are really coming on strong are neighboring Queretaro and Guanajuato, with their year-round pleasant climates and plenty of sun.
Tres Raices winery, opened to the public in 2018, is one of many located within an hour of San Miguel de Allende. There’s now a “Ruta del Vinos” with brochures and maps that the tourism board is promoting. Only a few of the wineries have hotels though and this one is the clear leader so far in trying to attract jetsetting luxury travelers from Mexico and abroad. Check out this video to get a taste:
Our full review in the online magazine was kind of an odd one to put together because two of us stayed there at different times. My associate editor Lydia was actually the first guest to check into the place last year when she was on site interviewing the 32-year-old winemaker for an article in an airline magazine. Construction was still happening at that point though, then the pandemic hit and everything shut down for a while.
The winery opened back up when it was able and the hotel followed this summer. Now guests can book a room and check in, enjoying the swimming pool, riding a bike through the vineyard, and enjoying a tasting or dinner in the main building.
There’s not a lot to do otherwise, which is kind of the point. This is a place you come to relax with someone you love, leaving work and worries behind. There’s no WiFi in the bungalows and the TVs get one channel. You’re clearly meant to relax on your terrace with a good bottle of wine and watch nature’s show instead.
There are only ten of these bungalows, so there’s never going to be a big crowd, plus they’re sufficiently spaced out that you won’t hear your neighbors. The blackout shutters work great and the beds are super-comfortable too, so if you can’t get a good night’s sleep in this place after a couple glasses of wine, you may need more serious medication.
Rooms and baths are both sumptuous, with rain showers, robes, L’Occitane toiletries, and fluffy towels. Room service is available too, with your needs met by a staffer on a golf cart.
Most guests only stay here a night or two, but if you need a serious break from noise or the troubles of the world, come for longer and watch your blood pressure drop. The bungalows are like a large studio apartment with a terrace, while the master suites are two-bedroom affairs with a living room and lots of lounging furniture. Be advised that the winery gets quite busy on the weekends with domestic visitors coming from feeder cities like Leon, Queretaro, and Mexico City. Pick other days if you want to avoid any social distancing worries. Although the place is big and has plenty of ventilation, the tasting room can get crowded if a big group or a few families all arrive at once.
When we post a tour feature later about five wineries near San Miguel de Allende, you’ll see that some are the small family affairs you may imagine for this secondary market. Tres Raices will probably surprise you though with its serious wines, impressive architecture, and grand scale. We tried most of their 10 available wines over two days, from an excellent Sauvignon Blanc to a great Tempranillo to a surprisingly serious rosé. Although the winemaker has needed to cobble together grapes from several regions while the home-grown plants were maturing, she’s managed to win multiple tasting awards in Mexico and Spain.
See our full review of Tres Raices Winery and Hotel between San Miguel and Dolores Hidalgo, Mexico.
