JC Bravo is a jewel of the Valle de Guadalupe, boasting a story and producing wines that are wholly unlike any other to be found in Mexico’s most established and recognized viticultural region. It is a small, family-run operation that is situated in Ejido El Porvenir in the heart of the Valle de Guadalupe. The winery was founded and is headed by Juan Carlos Bravo, the only head winemaker of a winery in the region to have been born and raised in the Valle de Guadalupe itself. The wines are produced from a single estate vineyard of Carignan, and Palomino Fino, which was planted by Juan Carlos’ father and grandfather in the 1940s and which has remained carefully-tended by the family’s hands since those early days. Juan Carlos was raised with an intimate relationship to the vineyard, learning to tend and care for it from his earliest childhood. Initially, the family sold grapes to neighboring wineries who would use them in their own production, however changing market and economic conditions eventually left the Bravo family without buyers for their grapes. However, rather than succumbing to the pressures to replant other varietals or other crops altogether, Juan Carlos was committed to his belief in his family vineyard and, through the help of the region’s pioneering wine advocate Hugo D’Acosta and his local winemaking school “La Escuelita”, Juan Carlos acquired the skills and knowledge to make wine and began producing wines himself in the early 2000s. They are now recognized as some of the finest wines being produced in the Valle de Guadalupe region.
Juan Carlos’ vineyard is composed entirely of dry-farmed bush vines that are only irrigated by rainwater and are naturally farmed without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers. This vineyard, which is almost entirely unique in the region, covers 14 hectares (34 acres) and is interspersed with fruit orchards and rose bushes. Every step in both the viticultural and winemaking process is completed entirely by hand, relying on the participation of Juan Carlos and his entire family.
Juan Carlos Bravo, his daughters, and his nephew run an incredibly pristine operation, naturally producing wines with extremely minimal intervention, and aging for much longer in bottle than any of their neighboring wineries to produce absolutely stunning expressions of the area’s terroir. From the meticulous sustainable dry farming of the family vineyard, to the native yeast fermentation of the wines in open-top concrete containers, to the years of aging in barrel and bottle that each wine undergoes before release, one can truly taste the care and the love demonstrated by the Bravo family in each bottle of their wines.
