Moments before the attack, the caretaker was caught on video patting the animal.
A 23-year-old man died in a Michoacán hospital Tuesday two days after being attacked by a Bengal tiger.
The man, identified only as José de Jesús, was bitten on both arms Sunday by a privately owned tiger he cared for in Peribán, a municipality on the border with Jalisco.
Video footage shows the man putting his hand through an enclosure and briefly patting the tiger before the attack occurred. He was using his other hand, which is not visible in the footage, to feed the feline.
José de Jesús was taken to a local hospital for treatment but was subsequently transferred to Morelia, where he died on Tuesday afternoon. According to an El Universal newspaper report, the tiger keeper refused to allow his arms to be amputated and his health consequently deteriorated. The man had diabetes and that disease, coupled with his injuries, caused him to have a fatal heart attack.
According to the director of the Benito Juárez Zoological Park in Morelia, the federal agency Profepa has asked him if the zoo could take the tiger.
The owner of the tiger, as well as other exotic pets, including a lion, said that he has the appropriate permits to keep the animals. He also said that he covered his employee’s medical costs. But the newspaper La Voz de Michoacán reported on Wednesday that the federal environmental agency Profepa had found that the tiger was being kept improperly in a mesh netting cage. Authorities have contacted the Benito Juárez Zoological Park in Morelia about the possibility of taking custody of the animal, the director of the park told the newspaper.
“This type of species is always easier to get on the black market,” zoo director Julio César Medina Ávila said. “I don’t know if this was the case; Profepa and the [state] Attorney General’s office need to determine that. They’ve gotten in touch with me to find out if we can receive [the tiger] after Profepa’s investigation or if [the owners] don’t have the proper permits.”
It was at least the second incident in the Mexican news this week involving a Bengal tiger: in Tecuala, Nayarit, a cell phone video that caused a stir on social media showed a tiger briefly wandering a residential neighborhood before it was captured by a youth who put a rope around its neck.
The animal appeared to have escaped from a house, according to witnesses, who told El Universal that the animal had escaped confinement previously.
Hurricane Blas, a Category 1 storm located off Mexico’s Pacific coast, continues to intensify, but is not forecast to make landfall.
The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said at 4:00 p.m. CDT Wednesday that Blas – which strengthened from a tropical storm earlier in the day – is about 450 kilometers south-southeast of Manzanillo, Colima, and has maximum sustained winds of 140 kph.
“Blas is moving toward the west-northwest near 6 mph (9 kph) and this motion is expected to continue over the next several days with gradual acceleration,” the NHC said in an advisory.
“Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 85 mph (140 kph) with higher gusts. Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours followed by gradual weakening through the end of the week.”
There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect, but “swells generated by Blas are affecting the coast of southwestern Mexico and are likely to continue over the next several days,” the NHC said. “These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.”
Blas is the second named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season after Agatha, which made landfall May 30 as a Category 2.
The National Water Commission (Conagua) warned that Blas would cause torrential rain of up to 250 millimeters in parts of Guerrero and Michoacán Wednesday afternoon and evening and intense rain of up to 150 mm in Jalisco, Colima and Oaxaca.
“The rain could cause landslides, increases in the levels of rivers and streams, overflows and flooding,” it said. Conagua urged people to be alert to weather advisories and follow the instructions of authorities.
Michael Rowe presenting his 2015 film Early Winter at the Morelia International Film Festival in Michoacán.
Costa Rican-born singer Chavela Vargas is quoted as saying, “We Mexicans are born wherever the hell we want!” This quote might also apply to Australian–born Mexican director Michael Rowe.
Rowe grew up working-class in a town called Ballarat, near Melbourne, Australia, a world away from Mexico. Since age 12, he had been a prolific writer, convinced that his destiny was to “… change the face of English-language poetry…”
He earned a scholarship to college, but he was pressured to study archaeology. This caused one of a number of life “crises” that would eventually steer him to where he is now.
Still in college, he took his savings and went to Guatemala as an exchange student. There, he decided that indeed he wanted to be a writer and upon returning home, changed his major to English literature.
Promotional poster for Rowe’s film Manto Acuífero, known in English as The Well.
Not too long after, his plays and poetry began to get noticed, and things looked promising.
This initial success caught the attention of a theater group he highly admired, Australia’s Gudrun’s Stockings, who contacted him looking to collaborate on a project. He was highly flattered, but he was also working through another existential crisis.
He was absolutely sure of his destiny to be a major poet until his readings took him to the work of T.S. Eliot. Everything before made him think “I can do that,” but not Eliot; it was far beyond him. Devastated, he focused on plays, figuring that even if he couldn’t be the poet he wanted to be, he could at least make a living from plays.
The offer from Gudrun’s Stockings seemed ideal until he found out that the project was for television, something he and others at the time felt to be way beneath serious writers. So he did what any self-respecting artist would do: he bought a plane ticket out of Australia as far away as he could go.
He landed in Texas, then took a bus to Mexico City, again finding himself with no job and nearly broke. It was also 1994, the year of Mexico’s economic crisis. Despite all this, he found work as an English teacher and eventually began writing for English-language journals in the city.
His plan was never to stay in Mexico, but rather to travel the world, but Mexico worked its magic on him, and he is still here.
However, he had gone “cold turkey” from creative writing, he says, in part because he could not bring himself to write about Mexican characters in English. It didn’t seem right, and his Spanish was not yet good enough.
The lack of creative outlet affected his emotional health, and he decided to try writing plays in Spanish, figuring the intense use of dialogue and the present tense would be less strenuous on his still-developing linguistic skills.
Michael Rowe winning the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2010.
Of course, playwrights want their work staged, but that means having connections, and Rowe had none. In 1996, he entered a screenwriting course at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, Mexico’s major cinema school. He completed the course, then looked for a director for his scripts for the next eight years.
He figured that if any of his scripts were going to get filmed, he would have to do it himself. He again quit his job and spent his savings to write a script and buy a camera. The result was Año Bisiesto (Leap Year). It was a long circuitous route, but the film caught the attention of a Cannes scout, leading to Rowe winning the Caméra d’Or, the prize for budding filmmakers.
This was the break he’d been looking for: Mexican and other funding sources that ignored him before were more amenable. He has since written and directed three more films, two in Mexico and one in Canada: Manto Acuífero (2013), Early Winter (2015), and Danyka (2020). He has also opened his own film school, the Escuela Itinerante de Cine y Narrativa (The Itinerant School of Film and Narrative).
Being a foreigner helps more than it hinders, in part because of malinchismo (“reverse racism,” he calls it), but also because foreigners bring a different perspective. Año Bisiesto focuses on an indigenous woman who is portrayed not only as a professional but also as having an active sex life, something not seen before on film in Mexico.
Rowe has chosen to keep Mexico as his professional base, even though he could have gone anywhere else after the Cannes win. Mexico allows him to be creative on his own terms as much as possible — not really the case in countries like Australia, Canada and the United States, he says.
As a filmmaker, he is 100% Mexican. He developed his craft here, and it is strongly influenced by Mexican writers and filmmakers such as Vicente Leñero, Fernando Eimbcke, Carlos Reygadas and Alejandro González Iñárritu, an artistic generation that has pushed for a more idiosyncratic style of filmmaking over the commercial and industrial work done in English-speaking countries. Rowe’s work is known in Australia, but it is considered foreign.
Cinematographic politics plays a role too. All filmmaking in countries like Australia and Canada is dependent on state monies and therefore state political priorities.
Hollywood is, well, Hollywood. Mexican filmmaking is also heavily dependent on state grants, but Rowe feels their system is “… as decent as you can get.” Films to receive funding are selected by committees of film professionals instead of bureaucrats.
Posters for two of Rowe’s movies, Año Bisiesto (Leap Year) and Danyka.
This leaves out much of the political agendas that, frankly, would shut out many of his scripts, since they deal with topics and ethnic groups that certain governments would rather he not handle.
At the moment, he is taking a kind of break from feature filmmaking and working on smaller projects. The practical reason is that his wife is currently the minister of culture, which means that he cannot apply for grant money in Mexico.
This year, he worked on a small film with private funding. Next year, despite his reservations, he is working on his first Australian production.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
PRI heavyweights were all smiles for the photo at a meeting Tuesday but reports described the encounter as tense. Embattled leader Alejandro Moreno is fourth from the right.
Alejandro Moreno’s tenure as national leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – and perhaps his entire political career – appears to be hanging by a thread.
Less than a month after making headlines for a callous remark he made about journalists while governor of Campeche, Moreno, widely known as “Alito,” is facing pressure to quit as PRI chief as well as accusations of illicit enrichment, tax fraud, money laundering and other crimes.
The 47-year-old deputy met on Tuesday with former PRI national presidents, who asked him to step down from the party’s top job to avoid another electoral disaster. Roberto Madrazo, César Camacho and Claudia Ruiz Massieu were among the former PRI chiefs who explicitly asked Moreno to resign, according to a report by the Reforma newspaper. Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, a senator and interior minister during Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012-18 presidency, also urged him to quit.
At Tuesday’s meeting, described in most reports as tense, the ex-party presidents reportedly told Moreno that there is growing internal dissatisfaction with his leadership of the PRI because he has managed the party’s affairs without consulting widely. They also said that this month’s poor election results would affect his capacity to lead the party.
In addition, Moreno’s reputation has taken a hit as a result of current Campeche Governor Layda Sansores’ recent dissemination of compromising audio recordings, including one in which he said that journalists should be starved to death.
Despite calls for him to resign, the party chief has vowed to stay in the job until his designated term ends in August 2023, two months after gubernatorial elections in México state – a traditional PRI heartland – and Coahuila. However, Moreno has conceded that he is not in a position to seek the party’s backing to run as a presidential candidate in 2024.
His ability to stay on as PRI national president and to continue to represent the party in federal Congress could be threatened by the criminal charges he faces in his home state of Campeche. The state Attorney General’s Office is investigating the former governor for illicit enrichment, tax fraud, money laundering, abuse of authority, embezzlement and improper use of powers, Reforma reported.
Morena leader Delgado, left, would be happy to see Moreno, right, carry on as leader.
While a federal deputy between 2012 and 2015, Moreno allegedly bought at least 13 lots in an exclusive residential estate in Campeche and subsequently concealed his apparent ownership of the land. His purchase was plagued by “presumed irregularities,” Reforma said.
As part of its investigations, the Campeche Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday dispatched police to the Lomas del Castillo estate, where Morena owns a large home. The officers parked in front of the PRI chief’s residence and took photographs and video footage of it, Reforma said. The newspaper also said the officers asked to inspect a total of 25 homes and lots in the estate.
State Attorney General Renato Sales told Reforma that investigators are seeking to determine which properties are owned by Moreno. “There are some in his name in the public property registry and others are in the name of family members, acquaintances, friends, his brother,” he said.
Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), a non-governmental organization, said in a report last week that Moreno “used his political influence and power to triangulate money through the purchase and sale of properties with the objective of leaving no trace on his declarations of assets or … [in documents submitted to] tax authorities.”
The PRI chief promptly issued a statement to deny the accusation. Despite the pressure he is currently under, Moreno is keeping up appearances – at least on his Twitter account.
“United, nothing can stop us,” he tweeted Tuesday above a photo in which he appears with the PRI leaders of all 32 federal entities. “Here we are united, moving forward as a team, putting the membership of each entity first,” Moreno wrote Wednesday in another post that featured him happily interacting with party officials.
Equally happy, and perhaps more so, is Morena party leader Mario Delgado. He tweeted on Wednesday that his rival should continue as leader. “He has helped us a lot in the growth of our movement …”
US Coast Guard members found the Mexican fishermen floating in waters off Huatulco, Oaxaca. The men said they'd be adrift for 23 days. Photos courtesy of US Embassy
Two Mexican fishermen who said they had been adrift for 23 days have been rescued on the high seas by the United States Coast Guard more than 200 kilometers off the coast of Huatulco, Oaxaca.
“They survived by drinking rainwater,” said a Twitter update posted June 13 by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. “The Coast Guard took them safely to Manzanillo” in the state of Colima.
They also survived by eating fish, a report in the newspaper El Universal said, and received medical attention after they were brought to Manzanillo, approximately 900 kilometers from where they were found in Huatulco.
El Universal also noted that, despite the rescue, port captains in the Oaxaca coastal areas of Huatulco, Puerto Escondido and Salina Cruz had not reported any missing fishing vessels recently.
One of the two rescued Mexican fishermen, in the plaid pants, is assisted by US Coast Guard members.
The embassy did not provide any information about the fishermen’s home port, what type of USCG vessel was used in the rescue or how the adrift boat was located. The effects of the recent Hurricane Agatha, which hit the Oaxaca coast on May 30, might have been responsible for dragging the small boat further out into the ocean.
The U.S. Coast Guard operates in Mexico under a joint agreement that targets drug smugglers off the Pacific coast, according to the Associated Press. Much of the South American cocaine in the United States ends up first in Mexico by seafaring smugglers using fishing boats, skiffs, commercial cargo ships and even submarines. The USCG in Mexico also participates in search-and-rescue operations and responds to ships in distress.
The rescue of the castaways was announced less than a week after a homemade submarine was found abandoned about 10 kilometers from Santiago Astata, on the Oaxaca coast. The acrylic and fiberglass craft, about 10 meters long and 1 meter wide, allegedly was used to transport cocaine, according to the newspaper Milenio.
It was found by local authorities after an anonymous call to 911, and then the site was secured in a joint operation of the Mexican navy, army and National Guard. One publication called it a “semi-submersible.”
Police at the scene of Tuesday's confrontation in Texcaltitlán.
At least 10 presumed cartel members were killed in a clash with police in México state on Tuesday morning.
The confrontation occurred during an operation in southern México state to apprehend a leader of the Familia Michoacana crime group, according to a report by the newspaper El Universal.
The state Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) said state police came under attack by a heavily armed group on the Toluca-Texcaltitlán highway in the municipality of Texcaltitlán, located about 65 kilometers southwest of Toluca. Officers responded with “legitimate force,” it said.
The FGJ said that 10 aggressors – presumably members of the Familia Michoacana – died at the scene of the clash and four others were injured. El Universal put the death toll at 11.
The FGJ also said that police arrested seven people – four men and three women – and seized weapons, ammunition, tactical equipment and five vehicles. Soldiers, marines and members of the National Guard provided support to the state police.
Three state police were wounded in the clash and two required medical treatment and were taken to hospital by helicopter. The FGJ reported that they were out of danger.
The Familia Michoacana, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and smaller local criminal groups operate in southern México state, where police have been targeted on several previous occasions.
In Coatepec Harinas, which borders Texcaltitlán, 13 police were killed in March 2021 in a clash against the Familia Michoacana, while four officers were wounded last month when armed men attacked a police station in the municipality of Sultepec.
Security forces parade through San Cristóbal but Tuesday's five-hour shooting spree was over by the time they arrived.
A large group of armed men sowed terror in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, on Tuesday, firing guns into the air, burning tires and vehicles and blocking streets in the southern colonial city.
Soldiers, members of the National Guard and municipal and state police were deployed to restore peace but not until the armed men had had free rein for hours, firing their weapons at will and causing panic among residents. Tuesday’s aggression was related to a dispute over control of a market on the northern side of San Cristóbal, according to the mayor.
About 100 armed men – some wearing bulletproof vests and balaclavas – acted with impunity for almost five hours, according to a report by the newspaper El Financiero. Identified as members of a crime group called Los Motonetos, the men fired shots into the air outside the Mercado del Norte (Northern Market) and blocked its southern entrance as well as the highway to the municipality of Chamula, among other roads.
The men also set tires on fire at a location near a gas station and a department store, the newspaper El Universal reported. El Financiero said the men – who were not confronted by security forces at any stage – torched vehicles as well.
Citizens take cover in a Walmart store in San Cristóbal de las Casas on Tuesday.
“Go and arrest them, go and arrest them, I need to [pick up] my son,” one desperate man shouted at police amid the chaos.
No injuries or deaths were officially reported Tuesday, but an image of a young man who was allegedly killed by a stray bullet circulated on social media. President López Obrador confirmed Wednesday that one person had been killed. “It’s regrettable that these acts of violence continue to occur. … In the case of San Cristóbal, there are two groups fighting for control of a market. … Unfortunately one person lost his life,” he said.
People in the area where the show of force occurred either fled or took shelter in shops, hotels or houses. Shoppers in a Walmart supermarket and employees of a medical center lay on the floor to reduce the risk of being hit by a stray bullet, while some students were unable to leave their schools due to the aggression, which began in the morning and continued until mid-afternoon. By the time security forces arrived at the market area at around 4:30 p.m., the armed men were nowhere to be seen.
A woman wrote on Facebook that she was among a group of people hunkering down in a hotel as shots rang out.
“We’ve been here since approximately 1:40 p.m. and we haven’t seen the National Guard, the military or municipal police go by. They’ve been conspicuous by their absence. This is the peace that the mayor brags so much about. It’s now 3:23 p.m. and the gunshots continue, some very close. Please don’t go out,” she wrote.
San Cristóbal Mayor Mariano Díaz Ochoa said in an interview that the aggression was related to a dispute over control of the Mercado del Norte between two “groups of vandals.”
“We can’t solve the problem on our own,” he said. “The most regrettable thing is to see the individuals shooting into the air.”
Security sources cited by El Universal said Tuesday’s aggression was triggered by an attack perpetrated by the Mercado del Norte administrator on a female stall holder. The stall holder required medical treatment but the administrator refused to pay. The actions of the armed men were apparently intended to intimidate him into resigning.
Control of the market – San Cristóbal’s largest – appears to be especially coveted because the area in which it is located is a hub of illegal commerce. Residents told El Financiero that drugs, weapons and stolen cars can all be bought in that area of San Cristóbal, one of Chiapas’ main tourism draws.
Researcher Javier Montes with bones and skulls found in Chiapas.
Some of the 150 skulls found in a Chiapas cave 10 years ago had been deformed to look like jaguar heads, according to a National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) researcher.
INAH announced earlier this year that the skulls found in a cave in a municipality on the border with Guatemala in 2012 are not the craniums of recent victims of violent crime as investigators originally thought but belonged to Mayan people who were likely killed in a sacrificial ritual between A.D. 900 and 1200.
Javier Montes de Paz, a researcher with INAH, told the newspaper Reforma that the skulls belonged to women, children and men who were captured and decapitated by a rival group. Teeth were removed from the skulls, which were placed on a skull rack called a tzompantli, according to INAH, which has studied the craniums over the past decade and determined they are approximately 1,000 years old.
“It was an altar — not to venerate so much as to show to the opposing people,” Montes de Paz said.
The skulls were discovered in a cave 10 years ago, and were initially thought to be victims of narcos.
He said that some of the skulls showed signs of “intentional cranial deformation,” but they weren’t deformed by the captors. Rather, the skulls of people destined to become warriors were modified from birth to resemble jaguar heads, Montes de Paz said. The plasticity of young skulls allowed them to be modified, he said, adding that the purpose of the distortion was to make them look ferocious. In addition, the jaguar is revered by Mayan people, and there are numerous jaguar deities.
“They deformed the head because they wanted to look like [jaguars],” Montes de Paz said. The desire for would-be warriors to resemble the feline was so great that they didn’t just modify the shape of their heads but also performed “surgery to cause a squint because the jaguar has stereoscopic vision,” he said.
“The deformation mainly occurred among warrior groups or those who were destined to be military chiefs, because they had to instill fear in the enemy,” the researcher added. To achieve the desired cranial alteration, he explained, a couple of thin wooden boards or ceramic slabs were attached to a person’s head to place pressure on certain parts of the skull. The sought-after effect could take up to five years to achieve, Montes de Paz said.
The researcher said that warriors or would-be warriors who were captured were stripped of the ferocity their deformed skulls afforded them via decapitation and the removal of their teeth, which were also altered to resemble those of jaguars. He said it hasn’t yet been determined whether the teeth were removed before or after the victims were sacrificed. Montes de Paz predicted that further study of the skulls will allow researchers to understand even more about the people they belonged to and those who captured and killed them.
The researcher noted in a previous interview that 124 toothless skulls were found in the 1980s in a cave in the Chiapas municipality of La Trinitaria, which is also on the border with Guatemala. Five other skulls that were also probably part of a tzompantli were found in 1993 in a cave in Ocozocoautla, a municipality in Chiapas’ northwest.
Pozo de Luna's first vintages arrived in 2016, but the brand already has plenty of national and international recognition. Photos courtesy of Pozo de Luna
Vinicola Pozo de Luna, a winemaking project in the perhaps unexpected state of San Luis Potosí, sits in an area that once formed part of a colonial wine route of far-flung vineyards planted by Mexico’s first missionaries.
During the colonial period, the Catholic Church was the only entity allowed to produce wine in New Spain, but in modern times, winemaking has returned to many of these regions. For that reason, even though winemaking in San Luis Potosi is a relatively new development in the modern era, the area has a long history of grapes in the ground.
Pozo de Luna is also a bit of a newcomer. The wine brand was founded only in 2008, but it’s already made waves in the short time since José Cerrillo Chowell and Manuel Muñiz Werge, two friends from the area who had some land, decided to start a business and expand wine tourism in the area.
In the Soledad municipality, just minutes from the local airport, they built a vineyard with all the finest and most advanced technology that they could import from abroad.
Founders and friends José Cerrillo Chowell and Manuel Muñiz began their business with grapevines they brought back from France in 2010.
In 2010, with the guidance of Dr. Joaquín Madero Tamargo, a wine scientist and viticulturist (a wine grape growing expert), they brought vines from France to Mexico.
The vineyard sits at 1,870 meters above sea level, in a semi-desert climate that provides an excellent climate for sauvignon blanc, viognier, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, Syrah, malbec, and other varietals.
Their business has grown little by little: from their first 10 hectares, they have expanded to 15, and the quality of Pozo de Luna’s wine is a testament to Dr. Madero’s excellent work. Their incorporation of new, increasingly popular varietals is proving that Pozo de Luna is a sustainable business with advanced winemaking techniques that each day is drawing increasing wine tourism to its door.
When San Luis Potosí eventually joins the country’s extensive wine route, Pozo de Luna will be one of the reasons it did.
The vineyard is on 15 hectares of land in San Luis Potosí and features a historic hacienda on the property.
These days, Pozo de Luna hosts visitors for all types of tastings and tours of the vineyard led by company sommelier Alfredo Oria. Their location near the capital’s historic center and the San Luis Potosí airport is an additional plus.
Pozo de Luna’s first vintages arrived in 2016, using grapes from the 2013 harvest. They included three varieties: a Syrah, a merlot (which later became a single-vineyard wine, meaning that all the grapes used for the bottle came from the same parcel of land) and, finally, a blend of cabernet, Syrah and merlot.
Their red wines generally spend two years in either French or American oak barrels.
In 2017 they produced their first white wine, a sauvignon blanc. And since then, they have continued expanding their line with a viognier, a malbec (another single-vineyard wine), and a nebbiolo rosé. This year, they launched a pinot noir that spent nine months in new barrels, a new young Syrah, a grand reserve Syrah, a malbec and a merlot.
The Pozo de Luna Syrah is a 2016 vintage that’s won both a gold and silver medal at the Decanter Awards.
Any wine collection worth its salt will want to have wine from Pozo de Luna — reds that are elegant, long and structured, whites that are classic and sophisticated. I tried the 2020 Sauvignon Blanc, a fresh single-vineyard wine with a soft yellow color and greenish hues. It was aromatic, very herbal and citric, with pear, pineapple and honey in the nose.
With a fresh and silky mouthfeel, this is a great wine for accompanying seafood and fresh cheeses.
Also from a single vineyard, the 2016 Syrah has an excellent evolution. The aging process was done nicely, with tannins that though present remain polished. Plum and blackberries flavors jump out at you. This wine is begging for a demiglace cut of meat or a spread of charcuterie.
Their first white wine has already won several international awards and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The full list (so far) of their wines’ accolades is below:
Working with a wine scientist and viticulturist appears to have helped the vineyard greatly; it’s already producing medal-winning wines.
Pozo de Luna Sauvignon Blanc 2017
Gold Medal at the San Luis Potosí International Wine Competition Festival (2017)
Best Wine of its Class gold medal, San Luis Potosí International Wine Competition Festival (2018)
Gold Medal, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, México selection (2018)
Pozo de Luna Viognier 2018
Silver medal, San Luis Potosí International Wine Competition Festival (2019)
90 points score out of 100 in the Guía Peñín wine guide (2020).
Bronze medal at the International Wine and Spirit Competition (2020)
The vineyard’s red wines generally spend two years in either French or American oak barrels.
Pozo de Luna Merlot 2016
92-point rating in the Mexican wine guide, Guía Catadores (2019)
90-point score in the Guía Catadores (2021)
Bronze medal at the Decanter Awards (2021)
Bacchus de Oro award at International Bacchus Competition (2021)
Pozo de Luna Ensamble Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot 2016
92-point rating in Guía Catadores (2019)
90-point rating in Guía Catadores (2021)
Bronze medal at the Decanter Awards (2021)
Pozo de Luna Malbec 2017
The Great Gold Medal, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles (2020); also named a Revelation Wine
90-point rating, Guía Catadores (2019)
9-point rating, Guía Peñín (2020)
Pozo de Luna Syrah (2016)
Bronze medal, Decanter Awards (2020)
Silver medal, Decanter Awards (2021)
You can find Luna de Pozos wine in Mexico and in the United States in California.
A photo by Yael Martínez whose work focuses on fractured communities and the impact of organized crime.
Three Mexicans are among 15 recipients of National Geographic‘s 2022 Wayfinder Award, which recognizes innovative individuals engaged in groundbreaking work in a variety of mediums.
Mónica Alcázar-Duarte, a photographer and visual artist, Yael Martínez, a photographer, and Carlos Velazco, a biodiversity consultant, are the three Mexican winners. They will join the National Geographic Society’s global community of explorers and receive a monetary prize to support their work.
Alcázar-Duarte, a Mexico City native, is a Mexican-British multidisciplinary artist and photographer whose work acknowledges her indigenous heritage while exploring current ideals of progress, National Geographic said. “In her projects, Alcázar-Duarte mixes images and new technologies, such as augmented reality, to create multilayered work, producing meaning through seemingly disconnected narratives,” the magazine said.
Her personal website features projects with intriguing titles such as Red Mist, Possible Landscapes and Mexico: An Inside Outsider.
Wayfinder award winners Alcázar-Duarte, Martínez and Velazco.
Martínez’s work focuses on “fractured communities” in Mexico, National Geographic said, adding that his images “often reflect the sense of emptiness, absence, pain, and suffering of those affected by organized crime.”
The Guerrero native, a nominee member of the acclaimed photographic cooperative Magnum Photos, showcases projects on his personal website with titles such as La casa que sangra (The House that Bleeds) and La raíz oscura (The Dark Root).
Meanwhile, Monterrey-based Velazco has documented more than 5,600 species (including undescribed species) and logged more than 24,300 observations on nature site iNaturalist while helping other users make more than 131,000 identifications, National Geographic said.
The magazine also said that Velazco’s life goal is to continue to promote biodiversity protection and documentation while empowering local communities and individuals to protect nature through knowledge and respect.
According to National Geographic, the Wayfinder Award “recognizes and elevates a group of individuals who are leading a new age of exploration through science, education, conservation, technology and storytelling.”
“These individuals have proven themselves as the next generation of influential leaders, communicators, and innovators whose critical work demonstrates the power of science, and inspires us to learn about, care for, and protect our world,” it said.
Recipients of the award – previously called the Emerging Explorer Award – are “engaged in groundbreaking work that challenges the most entrenched stereotypes in the animal kingdom, focuses on inclusive and community-based conservation, blends social justice with ecological scientific research, and promotes racial literacy in education.”
Information about all 15 of the Wayfinder Award recipients is available here.
