Frank Leal has been winning awards for the wines he’s made
shortly after planting his vineyards in San Benito County a decade
ago.
Hollister – Frank Leal has been winning awards for the wines he’s made shortly after planting his vineyards in San Benito County a decade ago.
Now, within a month of receiving his first 8,000 bottles from Mexico, he’s doing the same with tequila.
The wine and tequila maker won two gold medals and one silver at the Spirits of Mexico competition in San Diego last month for his Tequila 5150. He won a medal each for his three styles of the 100 percent blue agave spirit – Añejo, aged 13 months, Reposado, aged seven months, and Blanco, fresh from the distiller.
Dori Bryant, who helped organize the competition for Polished Palate, said 61 tequilas and mezcals were entered. She she’d never tasted a tequila aged in wine barrels, which is how Leal ages his Tequila 5150.
“It performed really well at the competition,” she said.
The name of the tequila, 5150, came from Leal telling his good friend Wes Walker, a former sheriff’s deputy, that he planned to make the spirit in Mexico and import it to the United States.
“He said, ‘Dude, you’re 5150,'” Leal said.
It’s a police code for people who are mentally ill.
Leal hopes his tequila will have an appeal similar to his wines.
“This is a boutique-style tequila,” Leal said.
To give the tequila an American flare, Leal ships American oak barrels he uses to age his wines to Mexico and re-toasts them.
“It’s made in Mexico but it’s for the American palate,” Leal said.
Leal is applying many wine making techniques to making his tequila.
Winemakers often leave or drop grapes from the vines during harvest to keep quality high. Leal said he will leave agaves – which are pressed for its juice, fermented and distilled into tequila – which he believes could create off-flavors.
After the harvest, Leal employs a lighter press to keep from extracting harsh acids from the agaves.
Leal is hopeful that in eight years, he’ll be making an American tequila for an American palate as well.
In late-February, Leal imported 16,000 blue agave plants from Jalisco, Mexico. The agaves are planted on Santa Ana Valley Road near Highway 152 and Gilroy.
