Spicing It Up: A Sommelier's Tips on Wine and Mexican Food

Does Mexican food make you think of beer or margaritas? Jill Gubesch has something to say about that. The 46-year-old sommelier of star chef Rick Bayless' Chicago restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo has spent her 11-year career discovering the best ways to make wine work with Mexican food.

Originally from western New York, Gubesch moved to Illinois to study musical theater. Working as a waitress in Chicago after college, she realized she loved wine more, so she apprenticed as a sommelier until a job with Bayless opened up in 2001. Gubesch recently spoke with associate editor Jennifer Fiedler about what a decade-plus of experience in one of America's top Mexican restaurants has taught her, how chiles are easier to pair with wine than one might think (hint: grapes and chiles have similar flavors) and why it's OK to order that margarita and some wine with your meal.

Wine Spectator: What are the challenges in creating a wine list for Mexican cuisine?

Jill Gubesch: The biggest challenge is to get people engaged with the idea of wine with Mexican food. The more you understand how well it works together, the list can be super eclectic. We also change our menus every four weeks, which keeps me constantly engaged. The minute I think, "This type of wine won't really work with our food," they'll change the menu and I'll think, "Wow, this goes really great." That makes it really fun. I can choose wines from all around the world. There are no real rules written about wine and Mexican food.

WS: What have you discovered?
JG: Over the years I've come up with these chile profiles that work with classic grape varieties. I've found that a lot of the dried chiles we use have the same flavor profiles we see in wine. For example, pasilla chile has this bittersweet chocolate, espresso profile, so you think about wines that have that as well. It has a little bit of tannin, too, so I try to find richer, rounder, softer tannins in the wine, or fruit-forward wines to balance those tannins. Some of the wines that go with straight pasilla sauces are Zinfandels, which surprises a lot of people because pasilla chiles have what we call a building heat, so as you go through the dish, it gets hotter and hotter. People say, "Stay away from high-alcohol wines, they're going to make the dish hotter." But something like a high-alcohol Napa Zin with forward fruit really balances that heat in a beautiful way.

WS: Have you had the opportunity to travel around Mexico?
JG: Absolutely. Rick takes us to a different region each year. Some of the best lists that have really extensive [selections of] Mexican wines are found in Mexico City. We've been to the top restaurants there. It's one of my favorite places to visit.

Oaxaca is one of my favorite places for cuisine. They're known for the seven moles of Oaxaca, which are the most important moles of Mexico. Black mole is the king of moles, and when Rick won Top Chef, it was that dish that took it home for him. It's the most complex in flavor, around 30 ingredients. It's also challenging to pair with wine because you've got sweetness and layers of spices and all this complex stuff going on. Right now I'm using a wine from Priorat, the Parmì L’Infant de Porrera 2007, and it's got velvety tannins and concentration. This is one of the best I've found with it.

WS: Do you find that people want to order cocktails rather than wine?
JG: I do encourage people to start with that cocktail, because it's something you can't miss, but then I try to plant the seed that once you start thinking about your meal, you'll want some wine to match. One of the things that I've become known for with our regulars is our wine pairings at Topolobampo. I mix it up a lot and use small producers that people haven't heard of. I had a table recently that remembered years ago that I had Saxum [the producer of Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year in 2010] on my tasting menu as a paired wine, and he said it had turned him on to Saxum way back in the day.