How Don Fulano Distiller Sergio Mendoza is Reviving Tequila with Regenerative Agave Farming

For Sergio Mendoza, tequila begins long before distillation or aging—it begins in the soil.

The Don Fulano co-founder grew up running through his family’s agave fields in the Los Altos (Highlands) of Jalisco, absorbing a multi-generational understanding of land, plants, and patience. Those early memories still shape how he thinks about the spirit today. And as one of the category’s most respected agricultural voices, Mendoza is pushing tequila toward a future rooted in regenerative farming, biodiversity, and a deeper respect for the plant itself.

His family has been farming agave in the area for generations. “Even today, we are a big family, and only a very few of us dedicate themselves to making tequila,” he says. “A lot of my family remain only agave farmers.” 

That grounding—agriculture first, production second—has always been the lens through which he sees the industry. And it’s why he’s become a quiet but influential force not only behind Don Fulano, but also behind other agave projects like Derrumbes Mezcal.

Mendoza’s path was shaped by a handful of mentors who helped him understand tequila from every angle: agricultural, technical, and cultural. His uncle and now Don Fulano partner, Enrique Fonseca, was the first, showing him it was important to dive deep into details of all steps of the tequila process. 

Another early influence was Gabriela de la Peña, who served as both owner and master distiller at Herradura. As a young man, Mendoza spent time at the hacienda in Amatitán, watching her run the distillery with a mix of elegance and rigor. “She was very sweet on one side, but she was super strict on the agave they received,” he says. “That image has always lingered.”

Later, in Europe, he met the late Thomas Estes, whose evangelism for tequila abroad helped Mendoza see the spirit’s global potential. And in the early days of the modern craft movement, he crossed paths with Guillermo Erickson Sauza of Fortaleza. Together, they traveled, poured, and advocated for a more traditional, more transparent tequila. 

“We knew that we had to build this category within the category together,” he says. “It was an amazing journey of sharing with other competitors, but friends as well.”

Still, the heart of Mendoza’s work is agriculture—specifically, regenerative agriculture. 

“I cannot underestimate the importance of that,” he says. “It sits at the very heart of what I personally do as a person and as a brand.” For him, the conversation goes far beyond tequila. “Agriculture is central to human evolution and to the big challenges that we’re facing — climate change, CO₂ emissions, the fertility and quality of the soils.”

At Don Fulano, that philosophy shows up in two primary systems. The first is crop rotation: planting agave, then rotating in legumes, alfalfa, chickpeas, or lentils to restore nitrogen and rebuild soil structure. The second is co‑planting—more complex, but something Mendoza wants to continue to experiment with. “As long as you’re combining crops, you’re balancing the soil,” he says. In some fields, they plant multiple crops simultaneously; in others, they rotate in stages as agave is harvested over the course of a year.

The goal is to avoid the extractive, monoculture‑driven agave programs that surged during the last decade’s boom. Mendoza watched companies rent land, plant agave with heavy agrochemical use, strip the earth, and move on. 

“They completely destroyed those soils,” he says. “These are systems that we need to avoid at all costs.”

His commitment extends beyond his own fields. Don Fulano collaborates with chefs and restaurants in Mexico City. This has led to him supporting regenerative projects like Arca Tierra in Xochimilco, which revived the ancient man-made “floating” fields (chinampas) that sit atop the lake and have fed the region for centuries. “It’s a really nice circular economy,” he says. “Supporting, promoting, and regenerating farming practices.”

Mendoza’s patience in the field mirrors his patience in the cellar. His family is known for pioneering long‑aged tequilas, and he still approaches blending with the same agricultural sensitivity. Every bottle of Don Fulano carries a handwritten batch number, and certain lots stand out for their depth or balance. He keeps those standout batches on hand as reference points, using them to guide the profile of each new blend. 

That approach is most visible in Don Fulano Imperial ($220), aged more than five years in a mix of casks made from French and European oak—a tequila with real umami depth, where notes of coffee, dried tobacco, dark berries, and roasted nuts fold into a savory, almost brothy taste. He aims for what he calls a “range of natural consistency,” allowing for subtle variation while maintaining the identity of the house style.

But for Mendoza, everything still comes back to the plant. When asked how he knows an agave is mature, he describes it like a living, breathing shift in energy. “The leaves start opening toward the horizon, as if the energy of the plant changed from going outward and upward to coming back inside,” he says. Color changes at the base, the piña swells, and the transformation of sugars all signal readiness. 

That’s the future of tequila that Mendoza envisions — transparency you can taste, rooted in soil you can trust. 

“Agriculture is central to human evolution and to the big challenges that we’re facing,” he says. “So we know for sure that we want and have to do as much as possible to communicate this.”