Villa Lobos - The Best Tequila 2015

Tequila Villa Lobos has been voted Best Tequila in the 2015 San Francisco International Spirits Competition, one of the most respected and influential competitions in the world of drinks. Villa Lobos is the love child of Carlos Camarena and Dale Sklar, long time friends and two of the world's most trusted Tequila experts. Both men were born into the business; Dale's father owned Capital Wine & Travers Ltd, a high profile wine and spirits importer and Carlos' father was none other than Don Felipe Camarena, owner and producer of the famous El Tesoro de Don Felipe tequila. Dale's first meeting with the Camarena family was when a customer asked him to source a shipment of El Tesoro tequila. Dale soon got in touch with Don Felipe and arranged to go and visit him and his famous distillery in the Arandas highlands near Jalisco; little did Dale know he was about to meet one of the greatest living Tequileros. His first meeting with the aging distiller was a great success and Dale was amazed at the vigour of the older man as he showed him enthusiastically around his operation. A deal was struck and Dale went home; unfortunately he would never see Don Felipe again but he did form a strong friendship with his son and successor Carlos Camarena. Many years later, Dale approached his friend and asked for his help in making the softest and most amazing tequila possible, one which Dale wanted to dedicate to his first love, a sultry senorita he had encountered many moons before.

The Story

The story begins in 1969 when Dale was a young man of just 18 years old and embarking on his first visit to Mexico.  His father had been trading with Alfredo Gonzalez of the Eucario Gonzalez Tequila Company for many years and Dale, fresh from university, decided to visit in order to learn more about the business. Dale was shown around the town by Rodolfo, Gonzalez's son and they drank tequila together in the local Tianguis, the Mexican equivalent of a black market. Dale wasn't used to drinking spirits and the myriad of strange and exotic smells and sights soon had him feeling heady. This was nothing like anything he had seen in London and he immediately fell in love with the place, an infatuation that would last a life time in fact. He sat in the hotel bar drinking tequila and Sangrita when a beautiful Mexican woman walked in. She was slightly older than him and had amazing jet black hair with a body that was sure to turn heads. To his surprise she approached him with a cigarette i her hand; he thought she asked him for a light but wasn't sure as his Spanish was weak back then. He tried to explain that he didn't smoke and she smiled and laughed. In broken English she suggested he buy her a tequila to which he obliged. He learned that her name was Lupita Villa-Lobos; he also realised he was a bit out of his depth what with being in a foreign country with a beautiful woman who's language he could barely speak! Dale decided to let her take control of the situation and what happened next... well, let's just say that it will remain private! No young lad ever forgets his first whirlwind romance and so, 40 years later, Dale has created his own tequila and named it Villa Lobos to remember his Mexican senorita. Each time he sees a bottle of Villa Lobos he thinks of Lupita and those hazy nights of passion back in Guadalajara.

How Villa Lobos Tequila Is Made

To see where Villa Lobos Tequila is distilled is to go back over a century to one of the last distilleries of its kind in Mexico where production is still done by hand in the old fashioned way, slowly and with heart. The agave used for Villa Lobos is entirely harvested by agaveros from the Camarena Family plantations in Los Altos, thus ensuring only the very finest plants are used. Carlos, like his Father Don Felipe before him and his Grandfather before him, regularly walks through the agave fields to see how the plants are developing. The finest agave with the highest fructose levels are used to make Villa Lobos with the lesser grades being sold to other less discerning tequila makers. The specially selected Agave plants are slowly cooked in the old traditional brick ovens; almost all distilleries now use rapid cooking stainless steel pressure cookers but this isn't be good enough for Villa Lobos! The agave is then crushed in the mill in order to separate the agave juice from the fibre. Natural spring water is then added to the juice before fermentation and put n large wooden fermentation tanks. These tanks have almost disappeared from distilleries now-a-days as they are so much harder to work with; however their end result is beyond comparison and definitely worth it! Only the local natural yeasts blowing in on the wind through the glass-free open windows are used to ferment the juice and slowly the bubbling of the juices starts as the yeasts convert the natural plant sugars into carbon-dioxide and alcohol. When the sugars are fully fermented, the juices are taken into the copper pot stills and slowly distilled twice to produce the ultimate tequila possible.  The result of the first distillation is known as ‘ordinario’ and eliminates some of the fatty acids and oily compounds. The second distillation is then carried out to produce the smoothest tequila that can be made with the most delicate aromas and flavours. In order to concentrate the flavours, the blanco is kept in steel tanks for 6 months to allow it to rest and slowly oxidise so the flavours and bouquet are enhanced. The delay is expensive for the distillery as usually blanco tequila is bottled immediately but then again, Villa Lobos is not most tequilas! The blanco therefore has an incredibly smooth finish with the famous spicy, white-pepper nose so beloved of the great Arandas Tequila houses. Some of the tequila  will be taken away and left in American oak Barrels to mature for up to 12 months; this becomes the Reposado and will take on the darker gold tones of the oak barrels. Some will lie for 1-2 years or even more and become even darker and smoother and labelled as Añejo, meaning old. Tequila Villa Lobos is an outstanding product that truly captures the ancient art of tequila making; smooth and satisfying this is the real deal! Check out the full range here.