Valle de Guadalupe Cover and Companion

The red of the wine in the glass on the September cover is a deep, almost opaque crimson. It’s a colour I mix carefully, aiming for something rich but not heavy, a promise of the valley’s reds and field blends. The cover brief for Valle de Guadalupe was clear: a single clear glass of red wine standing half-buried in pale dry sand and gravel, one green vine leaf beside it, low golden late-afternoon light throwing a long shadow, low dusty golden hills far behind; nothing else in the frame. It’s a challenge to distil an entire region into one image, especially a place that is not a single town but a wide, dry valley of vineyards and olive groves.

We considered many options for the cover. The valley is known for its wine, its open-air grill restaurants, its dirt side-roads and low, dry hills, and no single frame holds all of that. We could have shown a busy vineyard scene, or a specific landmark like the wine museum near Francisco Zarco. But the goal was a concept cover, one image that spoke to the essence. The glass half-buried in the sand and gravel captures the rural, spread-out nature of the valley, the sense of being out among the vines. It’s about the product and the land it comes from, stripped down to its core elements.

The colours did most of the work. The pale dry sand and gravel, the low golden late-afternoon light, and the single green vine leaf create a quiet, almost stark beauty. The long shadow adds drama and a sense of time passing, while the dusty golden hills in the distance define the broad, dry expanse of the valley. These elements work together to convey the feeling of the place: hot, bright days and cool nights, with that characteristic Pacific fog usually burning off by mid-morning. It’s a particular kind of light that defines the region.

There’s a clear difference between a photograph and a drawn cover. A photograph would capture a specific glass, a particular moment, with all its inherent details and imperfections. A drawing, however, allows me to simplify, distil, and control every element. I can make the sand exactly the right pale shade, the shadow precisely the length needed to convey late afternoon. The drawing carries an idea of the valley rather than a record of one afternoon in it.

For this column, I’m working on a companion piece to the cover, a different view of Valle de Guadalupe. While the cover focuses on the wine and the land, our guide is clear that the food is as much a reason to come as the wine. The valley is known for its open-air grill restaurants, and that’s a side of the experience worth exploring visually.

I’m sketching a scene from one of these places. It’s a simple composition: a long wooden table, perhaps under a canvas awning, with a large, rustic grill in the background, a cloud of smoke rising from it. The light is still golden, but perhaps a little earlier in the day, warming the wood and the smoke. There are a few empty chairs, a bottle of water on the table, maybe a plate with some grilled vegetables. It captures the convivial, social side of the valley, the other key reason people make the drive out along Federal Highway 3, the Ruta del Vino.

The smell of charcoal and grilled peppers, even in a drawing, helps convey that experience of the valley’s kitchens.