BELOW-THE-BORDER LOVE
Welcome to Baja's Adobe Guadalupe, a working vineyard and Bed and Breakfast
BY DAVID HIMMEL

David and Campbell Clayton are expatriates by God's good will. Both Americans, they met in Ukraine and married in Mexico. It wasn't surprising when over dinner in their Las Vegas apartment, David broke news that they were moving to China to pursue career opportunities.

While excited for them as they departed McCarran, my reaction was a stale mess. Weekends became empty and their wine was now out-of-bounds. And who would allow me to crash on a couch when drunk?

Before departure, Campbell offered me leftover wine from their wedding. It was a Monte Xanic 2004 - a Vina Kristal Sauvignon Blanc from the Adobe Guadalupe vineyard just inland from Ensenada, Baja de California. 

Adobe Guadalupe is an interesting place. It's located at the top of a hill overlooking an endless field of grapevines leading into the brownish grey mountains of the Baja. Back in July, when David and Campbell married, we arrived for the rehearsal, and as I exited the van after the 45-minute ride around hills and over bumpy unmarked roads, I half expected banditos to emerge on rooftops and fire six-shooters. It was eerily quiet. Instead of gun shots, the only sound was the crunching of rocks beneath our feet as we walked through the gates.

Adobe Guadalupe is a working vineyard and Bed and Breakfast. It has a large kitchen filled with fantastic aromas and high ceilings with magnificent and original art hung on the walls. And then there's The Cave - where wine is made.

The Cave produces 5,000 cases yearly. It is carved out of the hill that the house sets on. It is filled with barrels for aging and a few cobwebs way up in the corners of the walls. Art is an essential part of the Cave with a beautiful and colorful abstract mural hanging from the skylight in the tasting room next to the stored barrels. 

It was in the Cave that David and I slugged back a few glasses of their wine before he marched down the aisle to stand in the hot Mexican sun and marry Campbell.

So, now, as I look at the bottles of Vina Kristel in my wine rack, I'm enjoying flashbacks of the wedding - how elegant it all was, how my homily brought laugher and tears (like any solid wedding speech), and how David, somehow, sweated through his suit coat. I'm caught thinking about all our other memories, like playing Risk and realizing there wasn't enough booze in Nevada to last through the game. Or how David and I always knew when Campbell had too much to because her voice would shoot nine octaves up and sound more like an ambulance than a drunk.

But mostly, I'm thinking about the next time I'll see them. David and I will laugh at the latest news and convince ourselves a moral and economic depletion is approaching. Campbell and I will make fun of people at will and drink Chinese wine. Maybe I'll bring a girl, and maybe we'll do things what couples do. I doubt that, but maybe ...

So, for now, I'll open this bottle of Monte Xanic 2004 from Mexico and drink alone. It's not to feel sorry for myself; it's just that the Claytons gifted me new high-ball glasses for Christmas, and why not break conventional tradition to christen them with a pleasant white wine from south of the border. The holidays are over, and so should lonely depression. Nights like these are rare and rather remarkable.

Viva Mexico! Viva los Claytons! LW