Mexican Wine Day: Why It Is Celebrated on October 7 and How to Mark It

Every October 7, Mexico has an official excuse to uncork a bottle from its own soil. Día del Vino Mexicano (Mexican Wine Day) exists by decree. The federal government published it in the Diario Oficial de la Federación (Mexico's official gazette) on January 10, 2023 and set that date for every year. In 2026 it falls on a Wednesday, midweek and midway through the fall, when the harvest seasons in the Bajío are in their last weeks.

Another date circulates online, February 22, and it is worth clearing up the doubt from the start. The date published in the Diario Oficial is October 7, and that is the one that counts. Then come the practical questions: what is being celebrated, what events happen around the date and how to put together a tasting at home worthy of the day.

01When is Mexican Wine Day and since when has it existed?

The decree declaring October 7 of each year as Día del Vino Mexicano appeared in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on January 10, 2023, signed by the then president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the secretary of agriculture, Víctor Manuel Villalobos. The official sources we consulted do not detail why that particular day was chosen, although part of the press that covered the announcement linked it to the end of the harvest in the producing regions. What they do make clear is what is meant to be recognized. In announcing it, the Secretaría de Agricultura (the agriculture ministry) explained that the date recognizes the development of the wine sector, its economic and social weight in generating foreign currency and jobs, and the place Mexican wine has earned in national and international markets for its quality and prestige.

It is a fixed date. It does not move to the nearest Monday or change from year to year. Nor is it a mandatory day off, so people work and go to school like any other day. What changes is the day of the week:

• 2026: Wednesday, October 7.
• 2027: Thursday, October 7.
• 2028: Saturday, October 7, a good occasion to celebrate it at a vineyard.

Since then, the Consejo Mexicano Vitivinícola (Mexican Wine Council), which brings together the country's wine producers, has promoted the date each year. This is how it presented it in 2025:

El 7 de octubre celebramos el Día del Vino Mexicano, una fecha que reconoce más de cinco siglos de tradición vitivinícola y que impulsa la proyección internacional de nuestro sector. (On October 7 we celebrate Mexican Wine Day, a date that recognizes more than five centuries of winemaking tradition and drives the international reach of our sector.)

Consejo Mexicano Vitivinícola, on its official X account, September 17, 2025

02Why do some people say it is February 22?

Because some online calendar of observances lists it that way. We looked for a decree, an agreement or an official statement backing that date and found none. By contrast, the decree published in the Diario Oficial, the announcement from the Secretaría de Agricultura and the Consejo Mexicano Vitivinícola itself all speak of October 7.

It is not unusual for this to happen with commemorative days. Some are decreed by a government, others are pushed by an association or a brand, and others are copied from site to site with no source. To avoid a mistake, follow a simple rule: if a date does not appear in the Diario Oficial or in a statement from the government or the sector body, take it with caution.

03What does Mexican Wine Day celebrate?

It celebrates a long history. The vine arrived with the Spaniards in the 16th century and took root early. In Parras de la Fuente, Casa Madero began as the Hacienda de San Lorenzo, received in 1597 the land grant to plant vines and make wine, and is considered the oldest winery in the Americas. How to visit it is in our guide to Parras de la Fuente. Today Parras shares the map of the Coahuila wineries with the Sierra de Arteaga and Cuatro Ciénegas.

Farther north, it was missionaries who brought the vine to Baja California, today the region with the most wineries in our directory. In the Valle de Santo Tomás, where the Dominicans founded a mission in 1791, Bodegas de Santo Tomás was founded in 1888, shortly after Ensenada, and is usually presented as the oldest winery in the state.

And it celebrates a present that stretches across the map. Our directory gathers wineries from seven states, from the sea at Ensenada to the highlands of central Mexico. The complete tour, with its grapes and routes, is in our guide to Mexico's wine routes, state by state.

It is a map of contrasts. There are vineyards a few miles from the Pacific, in the Ensenada valleys, and others above 6,500 ft (2,000 m) on the highlands. There are grapes of French, Italian and Spanish origin that give wines here unlike those of their homelands, and houses with several generations in the trade alongside projects born in the last decade. That variety is a good part of what is celebrated on October 7.

If you are in Guadalupe Valley (Valle de Guadalupe) on that day, the Museo de la Vid y el Vino (the Museum of the Vine and Wine) tells that story in its halls, from the arrival of the missionaries in Baja California to winegrowing today. It is a good visit before the first glass.

04How is Mexican Wine Day celebrated across the country?

In recent years, the Consejo Mexicano Vitivinícola has accompanied the date with its campaign Elige Vino Mexicano (Choose Mexican Wine), in partnership with the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Restaurantes y Alimentos Condimentados (National Chamber of the Restaurant and Seasoned Food Industry, CANIRAC). Coverage of recent editions mentions tastings, pairing dinners and corkage promotions at participating restaurants, and a show with sales, the Salón del Vino Mexicano, where wineries from different regions pour their labels. For 2026, the press that covered the Consejo's announcement mentions activities between late September and mid-October, with participating restaurants in several states. The detailed program is published on the Consejo's official channels.

At everyone's own table, the celebration fits in small gestures:

• Order Mexican wine at the restaurant. If the menu does not have it, ask. That way they find out that someone is looking for it.
• Buy direct from a winery. Several sell at their shop or online, and it is the most direct way to support the people who make the wine. If the bottle is for someone else, in our guide to Mexican wines to give as gifts there are ideas by person and occasion.
• Toast with a region you do not know. If you always buy from Guadalupe Valley, try a wine from Coahuila, one from the Querétaro vineyards or one from the Guanajuato wineries.
• Bring it to the everyday table. A young red with some tacos, on any Wednesday, is also a celebration. Which wine goes with each dish is in our guide to pairing wine with Mexican food.

05What wine events are there around October 7?

October 7 falls in the final stretch of the harvests in central Mexico, and the weekends around it tend to bring festivals. These are the events that repeat every fall on our calendar, with the 2026 dates we verified on September 23:

• Vendimias Guanajuato, the state's harvest season, with festivals at vineyards and venues in Dolores Hidalgo, San Miguel de Allende, Irapuato and Silao. In 2026 it runs from August 1 to October 18. Date confirmed.
• Festival del Vino Queretano (the Querétaro Wine Festival), the close of Querétaro's harvest season. In 2026 it is Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18 at the Plaza Gran Cué in Corregidora. Date and venue confirmed.
• Mientras Tanto un Vino (Meanwhile, a Wine), the festival of Guanajuato producers at the Parque Guanajuato Bicentenario in Silao, which closes Vendimias Guanajuato. Its tenth edition will be Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18, 2026. Date confirmed.
• Aire Tinto, wine, food and music in the streets and plazas of Val'Quirico, Tlaxcala. Its fourth edition will be Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18, 2026. Date confirmed.
• Catando México (Tasting Mexico), every November in the historic center of Guanajuato city, with more than 300 labels from producers in different regions, according to its organizer. In 2026, Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21. Date confirmed.

The dates of each edition, with their confirmation status and sources, are on our wine events calendar. Check each event's official channel a few days before you set out. That is where venues, hours and last-minute changes are announced.

06How do you put together a Mexican wine tasting at home?

If that day does not allow for travel, the celebration fits at the dining room table. Three or four bottles from different regions show, in a single evening, how diverse Mexican wine is. This is how to organize it:

1. Choose a common thread. Three styles from three regions, for example a sparkling wine from Querétaro, a white from Baja California and a red from Coahuila or Guanajuato, or a single grape from several states, such as three Syrahs.
2. Serve in order, from light to intense: the sparkling wine first, then the white and the red last.
3. Mind the temperature: sparkling wine at 43 to 46°F (6 to 8°C), whites at 46 to 54°F (8 to 12°C) and reds at 54 to 64°F (12 to 18°C), depending on body.
4. Cover the labels with numbered paper bags if you want to play at guessing where each wine comes from.
5. Put the food at the end, once you have tried each wine on its own: some tacos, some cheeses, a little mole.
6. Write down in one line what you liked about each one and which region it came from.

For tasting you do not need to fill the glasses. About 2 to 2.5 oz (60 to 70 ml) per person per wine is enough, so one bottle covers about ten people. What is left over is for afterward, with the food and without the notebook.

In the tasting guide for beginners there is a ready-to-print sheet, and if one of your bottles is going to be sparkling, in our guide to Mexican sparkling wines we explain what each word on its label means, from brut nature to sweet.

07Which Mexican wine should you open for the toast?

It depends on who you are toasting with and what you want the bottle to say:

• For the toast itself: a brut sparkling wine, fresh and dry. In Querétaro there are houses devoted to them.
• For a beginner: a dry rosé, or a light red with little oak.
• For someone who already knows: one of the best-rated reds of 2026. The three with the most points in the Guía Peñín of Mexican wines, and the winners of other competitions this year, are in the roundup of the 2026 awards.
• To toast the history: a bottle from Casa Madero or Santo Tomás, the oldest houses in their regions.

Whichever you choose, check the label before you pay. NOM-199 reserves the name Mexican wine for wine made from 100% Mexican grapes, fermented and bottled in the country, and a phrase like embotellado en México (bottled in Mexico) does not guarantee that the grapes are. The clues to check in three minutes are in how to read a label and tell if a wine is Mexican.

Mark October 7 on your calendar, buy a bottle this week from a region you do not know and open it that night with someone you want to tell where it comes from. If you prefer to celebrate big, pick your festival weekend from today and sort out the lodging early.