Building a legacy at De La Luz Wines
Victor De La Luz is from Tehuacán, Mexico, about 150 miles southeast of Mexico City.
He had a difficult childhood. After losing his father when he was 3 years old, his mother tried hard but struggled to make ends meet.
“When I was a kid, my mom wanted me to get a better education and have better opportunities [than she had],” De La Luz says. “She sent me to a boarding school for poor people that was subsidized by the government.”
He entered the school’s dance program and studied traditional Mexican folk dance. In 1999, C’ACTL, a prominent dance company, held auditions at the school. “I’m short,” De La Luz says, “which was unusual for Mexican professional dancers.” To his surprise, his 5-foot-3-inch, 17-year-old self was invited to join.
Over the next two years, he performed globally. “We showcased Mexico around the world through [traditional] folk music and dance,” he says. His adventures took him to Sicily, where he was introduced to wine. De La Luz befriended the locals who showed him around. “We visited vineyards, the growers were enjoying lunch and drinking wine from plastic bottles,” De La Luz recalls. It led him to imagine what it could look like to be a winemaker.
Soon after returning from Italy, life threw De La Luz a curveball when his dance career was cut short by a knee injury. He obtained a visa and accumulated enough money working as a taxi driver to relocate to Los Angeles in 2005. After reconnecting and marrying a childhood sweetheart, the couple started a business selling fruit from the back of their truck. In 2006, they relocated to Monroe, Washington, to be closer to his wife’s family.
De La Luz was fortunate to meet Matt Loso, winemaker and owner of Matthews Winery, while working at Pasta Nova in Woodinville, Washington. “I was a dishwasher. Almost every night, Matt came in and ordered takeout for dinner,” he recalls. “One night, he came into the kitchen and handed me his phone. He said, ‘Victor, contact me on this phone.’ I thought it was very weird at the time.”
Loso offered De La Luz a better paying job, which opened the door for him to enter the wine industry. He was hired to clean the winery’s equipment and floors.
When Aryn Morell joined Matthews Winery in 2007 as a winemaker, he became De La Luz’s first mentor. Morell had him work his first harvest and exposed him to production techniques.
Eventually, De La Luz left Matthews Winery to become a cellarmaster at DiStefano Winery. Consulting winemaker Hillary Sjolund took him under her wing. “Hillary gave me the opportunity to work in the laboratory and taught me how to run wine analysis and understand all the numbers,” he says. With experience in keeping a winery clean, working harvests, production methods and learning the chemistry of wine, De La Luz was ready to make wine.
In 2012, De La Luz was hired as a winemaker at Walla Faces. He had the opportunity to learn from renowned winemaker Chris Camarda from Andrew Will Winery. Camarda was hired as a consulting winemaker. For the next five years, De La Luz refined his craft.
Still, De La Luz hadn’t given much thought to starting his own wine business. The day he told Camarda he was leaving to become a winemaker at Gordon Estate Winery, Camarda told him he should make his own wine. “I didn’t have money [to make wine] and he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll give you fruit, and you can pay me whenever you can.,’” De La Luz recalls. “He gave me one ton of fruit and I paid him back over five years.”
In 2018, De La Luz Wines opened in Walla Walla, Washington, with the release of the 2016 and 2017 vintage wines. He sources his grapes from vineyards he has worked and is intimately familiar with the terroir.
In addition to producing 300 cases of his own wines annually, De La Luz reunited with Aryn Morell in 2021 to become production manager for the Morell Wine Collective. More recently he expanded his work with Morell as production winemaker for Sagemoor Estates.
He is proud of his Hispanic heritage, and being there for family is the most important aspect of Hispanic culture to him. “My familia is always there for me, and I am always there for them,” De La Luz says. “I want to continue working as hard as I have because at the end of the day, it is not about me. I’m a first-generation immigrant and I want to build a legacy for my three children to continue.”
Featured Wine
2018 El Rey | Columbia Valley AVA
Cabernet Franc can be a challenging grape to work with. In previous vintages, De La Luz only used it for blending. El Rey (the king) is a tribute to De La Luz’s father. “It’s also a reminder that there is always someone above us,” he says. The wine is 100% Cabernet Franc sourced from Andrew Will’s Two Blondes estate vineyard. It is medium-bodied with beautiful dark fruit on the nose. It presents a silky mouthfeel with nice acidity. The tannins on the back end soften over time in the glass. Open one to two hours before drinking.
$65 | 14.5% ABV
De La Luz Wines produces 300 cases annually. In addition to El Rey, they offer several other red varietal wines including the unique “La Razon,” a Malbec co-fermented with 10% Gewürztraminer. A 100% Grenache “Carmen” Rose (named after his mother) and “La Suegra” Chardonnay (a tribute to his mother-in-law) round out the portfolio.
To read about Victor Palencia in “A Tale of Two Victors, Part 1,” click here.
