Mezcal Spotlight: The Cultural Institute of Agave & Wine

By Jonathan Lockwood

I've interviewed a lot of mezcal folks for these articles by now: producers, bar owners, bartenders, restaurateurs. But I'm not sure I've ever sat across from anyone as thoroughly credentialed in anything as Alex Galina, 43, founder of the Cultural Institute of Agave & Wine, or ICAVI. You’ve certainly walked by it at Recreo 10A, near the jardín.

Alex didn't start out with an agave focus. He studied Marketing and Mass Communications, and his first real job was as a marketing manager for Epson International. That's not exactly the origin story you expect from a guy who now holds titles like Master Tequilero and Catador Profesional de Tequila — both earned at the Academia Mexicana del Tequila — plus Master Espectro Tequilero on top of those. He's also a certified Maestro Mezcalero through La Academia del Mezcal y Maguey, and a Sommelier by way of the Organización Nacional de Sommeliers de México.

Most people would call that a full resumé. Alex called it a decent start.He left for Rome and enrolled in the WorldWide Sommelier Association. Then France, at the École des Vins de Bourgogne — the Burgundy Wine School. Then London, for the WSET, the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. By the time he landed in San Miguel de Allende in 2010, he'd assembled a kind of agave-and-wine world tour disguised as an education. That year he opened Casa Cofradía, a tequila shop, and later expanded to three more locations in Jalisco. From 2012 to 2020 he crisscrossed Mexico giving talks, conferences and tastings on agave spirits and wine — building what he calls a punishing schedule that didn't let up until around 2017, when he met his Bolivian wife. That's when the ambition shifted. Alex wanted to stop chasing income, and instead do the thing he actually loved: not just pouring mezcal and wine, but unpacking the culture behind them — the history, the land, the ritual — for people who'd never thought to ask.

ICAVI was born in 2016 out of that shift. Its mission, Alex says, is to promote the culture of beverages of Mexican origin — drinks that are part of the country's identity, and represent it with pride. What that means is a rotating slate of workshops: a Basic Wine Workshop, a Tequila Basics Workshop, a Basic Mezcal Workshop, plus a Master Class and blind comparative tastings for those ready to go deeper.

I asked Alex what actually happens in one of his sessions, and the answer was longer and more interesting than I expected. The first half is straight theory: how mezcal is classified, where it's made, the anatomy and reproduction of the agave plant, how wildly the species differ from one another. Then comes a second theoretical block on evaluating quality, because, as Alex puts it, what you like is personal and nobody can argue with it, but quality and character have actual parameters, and you can't taste seriously without them.

Only after an hour and a half of what he half-jokingly calls "the boring part" does the tasting begin — and it's blind. No labels, no bottles in view, because even a nice bottle will bias you.

He walks students through the difference between aroma and taste — sweetness, he points out, isn't something your nose detects at all; it's a taste perception, not an aromatic one. What people call "sweet" on the nose is usually something else: floral, fruit-forward, a note from fermentation or from wood contact during aging. It's a meticulous, almost academic approach to a spirit that, in San Miguel, often gets handed to you with a slice of orange and a shrug.

But Alex's larger point comes through somewhere warmer than academic: build the framework, learn the parameters and you're free to actually enjoy what you enjoy — without anyone telling you you're wrong for loving a Tobalá over a Salmiana, or vice versa. If you want to put Alex's parameters to the test yourself, ICAVI runs its workshops right there at Recreo 10A — easy to find, harder to forget once you've sat through a blind tasting and realized how much you'd been guessing all along.

Alex can be reached directly at alex@alexgalina.com or by phoneat +52 55 122 446 32

Jonathan Lockwood is a Mezcal lover, explorer, and collector and writes the Mezcal Maniac Substack: mezcalmaniac.substack.com