Currently in Guanajuato more than 700 thousand bottles of wine are produced annually; this makes the state the fourth largest wine producer in the country. In Guanajuato there are 385 hectares harvested from 43 vineyards, and a record of 137 labels, and 108 international awards.

 

The Harvest Festivities have returned to San Miguel in 2021; and the first is at Vinícola Toyán, on Saturday, August 14. There will be rituals, grape stomping, music, food, and art. Make your reservation in advance at 415 1527 400.

 

At Rancho Toyán the magic of what awaits inside is not clear from the entrance. Once you pass the gates you will see trees decorated with faces that give them the appearance of a living beings. “Toyán is the place where knowledge is born, it is a Nahuatl word,” said Martha Molina, the marketing manager. This ranch began because the owners wanted to “do something for the planet, for human beings, to go back and recognize what the ancestors did, now we have lost our way due to technology. Here the human being is unified with the universe,” she told us. 

 

Even when there is no harvest, tours of the place remain open. There is an organic tour in which people learn about growing, care for, harvesting and marketing organic products. On the wine tour, visitors are brought into an auditorium with a chapel façade, where they receive an introduction about Rancho Toyán. After that, they are guided by Marta Molina to the vineyards. Here they learn about the grape varieties, the care they require and the way they are harvested. Then the visitors are then taken to the production area where they can taste wine in process, while finding out about “the beginning of the magic of the grape.” After this, they are guided 14 meters underground, on a path about 100 meters long with sculptures of white and dark monks on the sides. The wine cellar “is a place where good and evil are harmonized,” said Molina. This cellar is underground because “we want the wine to be wrapped in the earth, to return it to the belly of the earth, the place of aging where the wine will finish aging”.