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Valle Del Vino
In secluded northern Baja, an English sailor found a passion for winemaking and built a hacienda to savor it
By Barbara Wells
Photos by Dominique Vorillon
PHIL GREGORY STANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS STONE LABYRINTH, surveying the Mexican land that he has come to cherish. It’s the Guadalupe Valley, a 14-mile-long wine-growing region 90 minutes south of San Diego. Spring has come, peppering purple and yellow wildflowers amid the artemisia, buckwheat, and sage that cover the rocky plain year-round; rusty-hued boulders colored by the land’s iron oxides lie about, large as bulldozers. “I like to come out here at dusk and watch the sunsets,” says Gregory of the rock maze he created that marks a junction of trails where coyotes, bobcats, and jackrabbits pass.
The British painter and former skipper-for-hire discovered the valley four years ago when he and his wife, documentary film producer Eileen Gregory, went to Mexico for a long weekend. “We were taken by surprise,” Phil says of the idyllic universe just 20 miles north of Ensenada. “We had no idea the valley existed and that there were even vineyards in Mexico.”
A month after their initial visit, they returned and found an undeveloped hilltop property. Hemmed in by mountains on the east and west, the valley’s quiet beauty and diffuse afternoon light, which spilled over the rocks below, sold the couple on the spot. “We looked at the view, then at each other,” Phil recalls. “I told the real estate agent, ‘We’ll take it.’ ”
Soon after buying the 70-acre property, the Gregorys realized they had purchased much more than a vacation getaway. A shortage of rooms in the valley prompted them to have their home double as an inn. Within six months, they had broken ground to build a two-story bed-and-breakfast, dubbing it La Villa del Valle.
 Though Phil, who supervised the construction, initially tried commuting from their Hollywood Hills home, he soon rented a small ranch down the road to be on hand full-time. In addition to drawing up plans and serving as general contractor, the self-trained painter helped Eileen select the home’s colors, which range from a rich aubergine in the kitchen to softer earthen hues colored by soils from the surrounding area. Added to a cement-sand mixture, the colored earth tints the outdoor fountain and interior walls in butter, ocher, rose, and lilac.
Today the Gregorys’ six-room country retreat features a north-facing portico of golden stucco and wrought-iron balconies reminiscent of those in Tuscan villas. The south side, with its arches and bobbing Tlaquepaque lamps, resonates with Mexican culture. Inside, custom furnishings (including soft leather sofas, cowhide-covered equipales, and indigenous Indian baskets) greet guests. The fusion of styles—the couple refer to it as Mexiterranean—continues through to the landscape, where olive trees and lavender grow alongside prickly pear cactus.
Phil’s local wine education began four years ago at Estacíon de Oficios del Porvenir, a.k.a. La Escuelita, a small wine school in the nearby pueblo of El Porvenir, run by valley wine guru Hugo D’Acosta. By the fourth weekend, Phil had purchased the 1,000 pounds of grapes necessary to make his first barrica, or cask of wine. “It was a grenache, and it turned out pretty good,” he says. “I was totally hooked.”
Now four acres of the Gregorys’ hillside are covered in varietals, including chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel, syrah, and viognier. His vineyard, planted just three years ago, produced its first crop last year: He managed to squeeze out just one barrel. Generally, it takes four years to get any yield at all, says Phil, who considers the first week after the harvest the most critical. During that time, he visits his vats as much as three times a day, checking temperature, alcohol content, and taste. He admits, “It’s a baby that needs a lot of looking after.”
Phil designed his own label for the wine, which he calls Vena Cava, the name of the body’s main blood vessel. Cava is also the Spanish word for “wine cellar.” The red line running the length of the bottle label is symbolic of a river of wine flowing through the valley. “Wine is the valley’s lifeblood,” he says. “We thought it was appropriate.”
When he isn’t occupied with winemaking, Phil is often tending his extensive organic garden. At last count he had 34 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, ten kinds of garlic, six types of radish, and four different sorts of beets. He has also planted purple cauliflower, artichokes, lettuces, and more than 70 fruit trees. In the herb garden, there are Mexican chiles, cilantro, and yerba buena, along with oregano, basil, thyme, and other herbs. Prickly pear cacti supply the nopals used by the B&B’s chef, V. Omar Garcia Salazar, formerly of Ensenada’s renowned La Embottelladora Vieja restaurant, for sauces and gelatos. Today the inn is famous for its fresh-from-the-garden “Mexiterranean” cuisine.
In addition to his organic gardening and winemaking, Phil took the time last spring to erect a palais de poulet, a pink stucco structure (inspired by a chapel near Ensenada) for his chickens—three dozen Araucana, Rhode Island Reds, and Marans. Some two dozen eggs each day go into such dishes as the inn’s renowned huevos rancheros with chilaquiles.
Recently, Phil transformed the small yoga studio by the pool into a wine-tasting room and planted 100 blue agaves at the entrance. To the side of the building, in another fusion move, he’s contemplating a raked Japanese garden. Plans are also in the works to convert part of the tasting room into a painting studio. “I’m hoping to take up my brush and paints again,” he says. That is, of course, if he can tear himself away from the land.
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