The Mexican wine industry is both the birthplace of North American wine and its newest frontier. Mexico boasts the oldest winery in the Americas and is also one of its largest grape growers. Strangely, Mexico currently produces only 20 million liters of wine per year. In comparison, the U.S. produces 3 billion liters of wine per year.
Mexico’s wine industry dates all the way back to 1521 with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. Legend has it that one of Cortez’s first orders as governor of New Spain was that each colonist was to plant 1,000 grapevines, for each 100 native employees, each year for 5 years. Mexico currently has over 100,000 acres of vineyards, however much of this acreage is currently devoted to brandy production (of which Mexico is the third largest producer in the world).
Source: Huffington Post, January 2017