ASSOULINEThe Pursuit of Bella: A Mexican Tequila Legacy

The Pursuit of Bella: A Mexican Tequila Legacy begins with tequila, but its true subject is inheritance: What a family chooses to preserve, what each generation transforms, and the extraordinary people whose values changed the course of both a company and an industry. Across nearly two centuries and eight generations, the Romo family’s story, rooted in Amatitan, Jalisco, is inseparable from the history of tequila itself, yet at its center stands Dona Gabriela “Bella” de la Pena Rosales. In the early 1970s, Bella, her husband, Don Guillermo Romo Celis, and her son, Don Guillermo Romo de la Pena, whose law degree thesis spearhead it all, led the campaign that secured Mexico’s first denomination of origin for tequila, an assertion of national identity that would protect the spirit worldwide. The volume opens the doors to the agave fields and the distillery, Bella’s intimate rituals, family photographs, personal correspondence, historic objects, and an extraordinary library and archive accumulated across generations. Contemporary photos by Andrew Reiner and the writing of Aleph Molinari, whose eye moves between history, art, material culture, and publishing, draw the reader into a book that is, at its heart, about the strength of one woman and the legacy that shaped one of the world’s finest tequilas. Following the debut of Blanco Suave at the F1 Monaco Grand Prix in June 2026, and of Blanco 46 in Venice during the Film Festival in September, the luxury tequila house The Pursuit of Bella will expand its collection in 2027 with a third expression: Bella Reposado. It is the creation of Don Guillermo Romo de la Pena, who introduced the world’s first reposado in 1974 and, with it, created the category.