Food and wine aficionados can take their taste buds on a cross-country tour of Mexico’s wine-producing regions at this year’s Nación de Vinos wine festival.

Now in its third year, an event that is billed as the country’s biggest wine festival takes place Wednesday and Thursday in Mexico City’s Hipódromo de las Américas Forum.

“We’re very happy with this year’s program,” says the festival’s creator, Valentina Ortiz Monasterio. “It’s a monumental effort by the organizing committee and the wineries. I think the best news is that Nación de Vinos is now the most anticipated wine event in the country.”

The festival celebrates the international reach of Mexican wines. The Mexican Viniculture Council reports that Mexico is among the top 10 countries with the most prize-winning labels in the world’s most prestigious competitions.

However, Nación de Vinos, or Nation of Wines, is really about inspiring passion for domestic wines in Mexicans themselves, who are more accustomed to drinking chela (beer), tequila and whisky.

“The main idea behind the event is to bring Mexicans closer to Mexican wines.”

And it appears the festival has been accomplishing exactly that. The Mexican Viniculture Council says Mexico’s per-capita consumption of domestic wines has doubled in the last five years.

The event’s third iteration will bring together 80 wineries from the winemaking states of Baja California, Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Sonora, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Zacatecas.

Food is also an important part of the event.

Visitors will be able to pair the abundance of award-winning wines with the equally acclaimed dishes of distinguished Mexico City restaurants such as Sud 777, Pujol, Nicos, Quintonil, Rosetta and La Docena, all of which recently made the list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants.

“One thing that sets this year’s event apart will be the distinct and fun gastronomy, which is sure to include ingredients and recipes that marry well with Mexican wine, which is very important,” says Ortiz.

Nación de Vinos is the perfect occasion for getting to know in detail the virtues of each wine-growing region in Mexico and the lengths producers go through to create such high-quality beverages.

Visitors will also be able to learn about the challenges in the value chain, the vision of the industry’s future and everything else that invigorates wine culture in Mexico at the festival’s conferences, workshops, exhibitions, tastings and more.

Sources: Forbes (sp), El Universal (sp)