Bienvenido a México! On Jan. 23, I made my first trip to Mexico, joining the monthly Mexican vineyard tour Adventure Club San Diego arranges. I love good wines, so the tour to the Baja’s Guadalupe was perfect for me. Usually, the trips have more than 15 tourists, but we had really personal touring because we were a smaller group. Our tour guide, Al (Big Al) Horne, has toured Baja California for 15 years, and our driver, Juan, also had special knowledge of the area; it was great he shared those things. We also stopped at a taco kiosk, where I ate the mind-blowingly best tacos in my life. We stopped at three wineries – El Cielo, Adobe Guadalupe and Barón Balch’é – and ate at a gorgeous ranch, Hacienda Guadalupe. All the vineyards were beautiful, and the customer service was really nice, but Barón Balch’é truly stood out. The staff let us taste six different wines, and they didn’t have any kind of rush. They explained the process of winemaking, telling us that their wine is quite old and that that’s why the taste is nice and ripe. The worst thing about the trip was that you are able to bring only one bottle of wine to the U.S. I bought some and as I sipped I thought of my memories of the trip. I’m sure I’ll want to visit Mexico again. The next wine tour is Feb. 27. For more information, visit AdventureClubSanDiego.com. (I’m Hanna Laukkanen, a 26-year-old journalist, who moved from Finland to San Diego for an internship in San Diego Community Newspaper Group. In this blog I will compare Finnish and American lifestyles and try to find out a lot more about the Californian way of living. Please send me feedback at [email protected].)