Vinícola Retorno

I had such high expectations for this little winery from all the stellar reviews. I have been to Valle de Guadalupe a handful of times on winery tours through the years and expected another warm winery visit. Not what we got that day. Our group of 12 arrived and we waited a bit to be seated, which is fine. It is a small winery and they only have one large table. Gerardo was working that day. He seems nice but he didn't tell us much about the winery or the wines he was pouring. We had to ask him questions about their grapes and wine making process. The tasting room was very cute and comfortable. Their wines were ok. None of them really jumped out at me so I ended up not buying anything. Nobody else liked their wines and we were a bit disappointed with the impersonal service. We all were looking forward to the visit because of the good reviews but it just wasn't a good experience.

Diego was fantastic! I love how much they've expanded since my last visit. It's definitely a must visit when you're in El Valle. My favorite wines were the Homenaje and Palabra.

Really unique winery which is off the main path of ones you may read about. Excellent wines and friendly engaging staff. They use natural wine making techniques and leverage pre-industrial machinery to manually cultivate the wine. Unique and labor intensive, but from what I saw, a labor of love. The Homage and Decade were especially good.

Sweet and sour wine with great arrive and tastings. The smell of limes and then sweet pineapple. Gerardo makes great wine and does fantastic tastings.

BEWARE. People and service was nice, the only thing that I really really didn’t like was the hidden price. It felt the people there took advantage of us. When we arrived we said we didn’t want a lot of wine (we were on a tour and this was our third tasting). We even mentioned that we were ordering 1 tasting and sharing it. The guy told us that he was going to put a tiny bit of wine in each of our 4 glasses for us to taste. We agreed without thinking twice, that he was going to charge us for 1 tasting. They really served a tiny bit of the wine. Basically just to sip. We didn’t asked for extras or anything. At the end they charged us 1 pairing per person, 4 pairings. 800 pesos for basically 1 full wine glass of not our favorite wine :(

Seriously probably the best wine I ever had was here! Im from California near Paso Robles and Valle de Guadalupe beats the wines in Paso. Diego was an excellent host, gave us a great experience and a treat. Bought bottles from here and finished them coming back to the states.

Great small winery off the beaten path. A hidden gem! The people there are passionate about the wine, which carries through to both the wine and the tasting experience. Amazing stories behind each vintage. Was lucky enough to have a special barrel tasting! We bought several bottles and it was by far one of the most memorable tasting experiences we had in Valle de Guadalupe.

We have been travelers to the valle for the last seven to eight years and wow has it changed. While the larger wineries have their place and are worth visiting, we think the true essence of the valle is in the small wineries in places that you would normally not go. Vinicola Retorno is one of those true gems that we found when we went to explore a small corner of the valle that we had not spent any time in. You're not quite sure where you're going to end up as you follow the person back to do tastings but you end up in the middle of everything and a truly unique experience. You are in the middle of the winemaking, tasting incredible wines, meeting the winemaker and experiencing the Valle at its finest. Mark the location on your map, trust yourself and have a truly wonderful experience. UPDATE- during our trip we bought a bottle of descade with the intent of keeping it for a special occasion. FYI We've done this several times over the years and the experiences have been inconsistent with the wine often not being quite what you remembered. Yesterday was the special occasion we chose for this bottle. The wine was opened, decanted, poured, the toast, and then the first sip. Outstanding! The wine was everything we remembered and everything it was advertised to be, a truly wonderful experience - both the wine and the memories. We can't wait to go back!