José Viveros Tadeo and his wife Janey Aguilar Reyes, dedicated to logging in the community of Noh-Bec, in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, had a routine life until they were sold a small grape plant six years ago.
The plant came by chance. The woman was looking for a vine that would provide shade for her orchids, so she bought it without imagining that it would bear fruit and that her husband would have “the crazy idea” of making wine in a rural community in the Mayan area of the state of Quintana Roo, where the grape had never been harvested.
“I said: I am going to buy it because I know that it is a vine and that it will give shade to my plants. I never bought it with the idea that I was going to have grapes, because I know that here is not a region of grapes”, recalled Mrs. Janey.
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That “crazy idea” won second place in the state government’s “Tourism Innovation” award, with which they received training for the ecotourism project.
“They helped us in terms of costs. We didn’t know anything about marketing and everything, they told us: they have to learn to put a price on it, to give it value. Because we didn’t know anything. We charged 50 pesos, 100 pesos (between 3 and 6 dollars), we didn’t even know what we had, ”he explained.
An ecotourism enterprise
Viveros Tadeo saw in his wife’s hobby the opportunity to materialize one of his dreams: to have his own wine.
The project has attracted the attention of agronomists from the University of Chapingo and oenologists who have offered to collaborate in the creation of the first wine from the Mayan area.
“This is a family project that began in 2019. As a test, we made half a hectare with 100 grape plants to see the results of whether it could give us the grape fruit,” said the man on a tour of the vineyard.
“Everyone told us that we were crazy, that this was a fruit that was not going to give us in this region, that it was not very common for these grape plants to be planted in this town,” he recalled.
A vineyard that has won the “Tourism Innovation” award has brought wine tourism to the Mexican Caribbean, a hot and tropical area where it is difficult to conceive of this type of attraction.
When production flourished, they made Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Moscato.
They have also planted strawberries, peaches (peach) and blackberries, which are not usually grown in the area either.
The construction of the nursery caused great expectations among the inhabitants of the community, where the planting of corn and beans is more common.
The Viveros family was not prepared for the arrival of so many tourists to the vineyard, people wanted to see the grapes and they had not thought of getting paid.
As a result of the “Tourism Innovation” award, they focused on positioning it as an ecotourism and rural project.
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“We had not thought of dedicating ourselves fully to ecotourism, we work with wood, it is a 100% forest community. So, the most complicated challenge was to start promoting or for people to find out about our project”, she mentioned.
The Viveros Vineyard is in its first phase and, in addition to the tour of the half-hectare crop, you can have breakfast or lunch in its restaurant.
While he continues with the plans to have the first artisan wine production, José Viveros and his family are already planning the construction of cabins for lodging.
They seek to offer overnight tourists bike tours, bird watching and even lizard watching in a nearby lagoon.
Source: EFE.
2023-08-27 23:51:14
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