2019 Bichi "Pet Mex", Tecate, Mexico

Bichi was founded in 2014 by the Téllez family, who moved to Baja from neighboring Sonora, hence the name Bichi, which means “naked” in the Sonoran Yaqui dialect. Noel left his day job as a lawyer and is now the sole proprietor of Bichi, overseeing all day-to-day operations of the winery. Helping out with winemaking duties is Beaujolais-trained Yann Rohel. Noel is continuing to grow and learn and is regularly seeking out new vineyards and evolving the Bichi winemaking style.

Bichi farms 10 hectares of their own Tecate vineyards biodynamically and collaborates with a growing family of organic farmers working vineyard land in Tecate and around San Antonio de las Minas (Valle de Guadalupe). In the winery, grapes are destemmed by hand and gently trodden by foot, and fermentations are carried out by wild yeast in locally-made concrete amphorae. The wines are raised in a mix of neutral barrels and steel vats, with a minuscule 10 ppm of sulfur added at bottling to preserve the wine for travel, if needed.

It’s hard not to talk about Bichi without mentioning the labels, which are uniquely Mexican and represent the Téllez family's whimsical sense of humor. Inside the bottles are incredibly vibrant and transparent wines that evoke the nearby Pacific Ocean, the granite soils, and rugged mountain vineyards of their region. Through the persistent work of the family and their farmers and collaborators, lively Baja wine is officially on the map.