MEXICO. Destileria Porfidio, the Mexico-based distiller of top quality agave tequila and single cane rum, is set to launch in the new year a super-premium tequila distilled at a new facility in Switzerland from South African-grown blue agave.
Production of Destileria Porfidio’s agave spirit and rum brands will continue in tandem at the Puerto Vallarta facility in Mexico.
On 1 January the first bottle of Porfidio “Tour du Monde” will hit the market, an unwooded triple distilled 100% agave spirit, which will retail in Europe at around US$30.
Like its predecessors it will be sold in a distinctive hand-blown glass bottle with a model cactus at the base. After five years Porfidio expects to release Porfidio Single Barrel Anejo, an aged agave “tequila” of exceptional quality.
With new ideas and regulations on tequila, something of a revolution has been taking place. After many years of international lobbying and litigation, the state of Jalisco finally got the recognition it wanted for tequila: the so called denominación de origen. This means that only tequila from a clearly defined region inside Jalisco state can now bear that name. This is the same as happens with brandy produced in Cognac and the sparkling white Chardonnay made and bottled in Champagne.
Traditionally, “tequila” is not a product category like whisky or brandy but a collective trademark owned by the Mexican government that decides which companies can be licensed to produce the spirit. The authorities declined to licence Porfidio, a company, founded by a European, which was apparently succeeding at the expense of local industry.
Faced with political pressure to quit tequila production in Mexico until political reforms have been implemented, Destileria Porfidio said it was obliged to look for a new temporary home.
South Africa was chosen as the source of the raw material for Porfidio Tour du Monde as it has a climate which is conducive to growing agave plants and a government which is sympathetic to agave tequila production. The freshly vinified agave juice will be shipped to Switzerland where it will be distilled, aged in virgin oak barrels and bottled in a technically-advanced environment to produce fine 100% pure agave tequila.
Note: Destileria Porfidio was originally founded in Mexico in 1991 by Martin Grassl, a young Austrian whose family had for generations produced fine brandy at their distillery in the Alps. Within seven years Grassl’s small state-of-the-art distillery at Puerto Vallarta on the Mexican coast had established a reputation for agave tequila of a quality which exceeded that of many local tequilas.
In 2002, Grassl established a joint venture with James Domileo, the owner of 1,000 hectares of agave plantations in Huluhuwe, on the highway between Durban and Johannesburg in South Africa.
Domileo’s family had been exporting agave fibre for a hundred years. In the 19th century Mexico had a thriving agave fibre trade with Europe but when immigrant plantation owners were ousted in the Mexican revolution of 1910, the trade dried up. Domileo’s grandfather filled the gap in the market by importing Mexican agave seedlings to South Africa and exporting first rate agave fibre to Europe. However by 1960 synthetic fibres had begun to usurp natural agave fibres.
With a burgeoning market for pure high quality spirits, agave production outside Mexico for the tequila industry is a natural step forward says Porfideo.
For trade enquiries email: ponciano.porfidio@tequilaporfidio.com or visit Destileria Porfidio during Cannes at Stand D3, Blue Village.
