Celebrating the Uncelebrated
From a South African harvest epiphany to Santa Rosa cellars, Corinne Rich and Katie Rouse are rewriting California's wine map — one Verdelho, one Arneis, one Valdiguié at a time. Partners in love and winemaking, they prove that structureless reds are not the only future: the uncelebrated varieties of California can produce wines with gravitas, wit, and a brightly coloured wax top.
From UC Davis to Cape Town
Corinne Rich was born and raised in Sonoma County to parents with "zero ties to the wine industry other than being passionate consumers." She earned her B.A. in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, endured the "world's briefest stint in pharmaceutical research," then returned to Northern California and dove head-first into wine production — working harvests across Sonoma, Willamette Valley, New Zealand, and Australia before enrolling in her M.S. in Viticulture & Enology at UC Davis [^111^].
Katie Rouse came from a winemaking family in Rockbridge County, Virginia. She did her undergrad at Whitman College in Geology — "her rampant enthusiasm for all things rock-related" — then gravitated back to wine while working in Napa/Sonoma Carneros. She too enrolled at UC Davis for her M.S. in Viticulture & Enology [^111^].
They met at Davis. Fell in love. Then, in 2018, they travelled together to South Africa for harvest — Corinne at Mullineux, Katie elsewhere — and found themselves surrounded by people working to diversify the South African wine industry, both in terms of who made it and what was made [^113^]. At Mullineux, Katie encountered old-vine Verdelho — a grape conventional wisdom dismissed as light and unremarkable — transformed into something layered, complex, and textural through proper care. "That was the spark," she says [^113^].
They returned to California inspired and ready. In 2018, they fermented their first Birdhorse wines — Verdelho from Contra Costa County and Carignan from Mendocino. The project was born from a shared vision: to celebrate regions, varieties, and humans that have long had a presence in California but "have yet to have their turn in the modern zeitgeist of American wine" [^111^].
"Birdhorse represents a vision for the future of California winemaking, a vision anchored in a passion for celebrating the uncelebrated. We strive to showcase regions, varietals, and humans that have long had a presence in this industry, showcase authentically Californian terroir, but have yet to have their turn in the modern zeitgeist of American wine."
— Birdhorse Wines
Seven Sites, Seven Stories
Birdhorse sources from seven distinct vineyards across California, each chosen for its organic or sustainable farming, its unique terroir, and its contribution to the project's mission of diversification. From the San Joaquin Delta to the Sierra Foothills, these are not the usual California addresses [^119^].
The name "Birdhorse" itself came from an NPR game show — "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" — outlining a theory that all people can be described as a combination of horse, bird, and muffin. "It was intended to convey a sense of looking inward, trying to understand oneself. But also," Corinne admits, "it was just a little silly" [^113^]. The name evokes adventure and whimsy — "a thing you can conjure in your mind's eye, a faint outline, but requires an inquisitive and open mind to fill in the details" [^111^].
Knightsen, Contra Costa County. 2 miles from the San Joaquin Delta. Planted 2002 on Sorrento silty clay loam. Warm days bring golden aromatics; cool Delta winds preserve brilliant acidity. Organically farmed by Tom Morgan. The spark that started Birdhorse.
Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County. Young vines on Zamora silty clay-loam. Italian varieties in a nod to the AVA's rich Italian heritage. Intense heat met by Dry Creek's cooling water. Organically farmed since inception. The Mediterranean in California.
Mendocino, Russian River banks. Planted 1994 by Glenn McGourty (UC farm advisor, 30+ years). Two clones of Piemontese Arneis, uncultivated since inception. Sustainably farmed with pup Siaoban. Fermented in neutral 500L puncheon, lees-aged. A nod to Northern Italy.
Dry Creek Valley. Owned by Lou Preston since the late 1970s — "a beacon of sustainable farming before that term existed." First plantings were Rhône varieties. Gravelly, loamy soils, hot climate. CCOF certified. Biological diversity and ecosystem farming. The gold standard.
Hopland, Mendocino. ~1,600ft elevation. Dry-farmed, organically farmed by the Poor family for 6 generations. 180-acre ranch. Head-trained vines from the mid-1900s in the Hub Block. Intensity and old-world sensibility from ancient, dry-farmed vines.
Suisun Valley, north end, at the base of the Vaca Mountain Range. Brentwood clay-loam soils on a large alluvial fan. Planted in the 1980s — 40-year-old vines, organically farmed. Bodacious bunches of juicy, red grapes. The "Napa alternative" with soul.
Amador County, Sierra Foothills. ~1,800ft elevation. Iron and quartz-rich soils. Planted early 2000s — young by California standards, but depth and nuance beyond its years. Ann Kramer's meticulous farming. Barbera: the cultivar that started Amador's wine industry over a century ago.
Not Glou Glou, Not Natural Wine
Birdhorse bottles look playful — brightly coloured wax tops, sparse line drawings of two animals in profile — and they are often assumed to contain "glou glou": the chuggable, structureless reds so in vogue. But Corinne and Katie are making something sneakily complex. "Structureless reds are very in vogue right now, but that doesn't always do justice to the vineyard," Corinne says [^113^].
Their Carignan refused to conform to the light-and-bright mould. Their Barbera has "ripping acidity and grippy tannins." Their Arneis "demands its drinker to pause and pay attention." These are not simple wines — they are wines with gravitas, made from varieties that conventional wisdom dismisses [^113^].
In the cellar, they employ minimal intervention: native yeast ferments, no new oak, minimal SO₂ additions [^116^]. But they are not dogmatic. They add nutrients during fermentation and limited sulfur — "we have never called ourselves natural wine," Corinne insists. "I don't want that to be the reason that people come to us" [^113^]. They use saignée to concentrate their reds — bleeding off juice to increase skin-to-juice ratio — and a technique they call "bag wine" for Valdiguié: half a ton of grapes in a giant plastic bag, air squeezed out, zip-tied shut, left in the sun for two weeks. The oxygen-limited portion creates denser, less fruity wine that brings weight to the final blend [^113^].
The Day Jobs
Corinne is assistant winemaker at Scribe Winery in Sonoma. Katie is assistant winemaker at Bedrock Wine Co. — one of California's most respected natural wine producers. They hold these positions while building Birdhorse on the side, bringing the rigour and knowledge of two benchmark cellars to their own project. Tyler Ernst, a Wharton/Stanford friend from Penn days, provides the "non-trained-winemaker voice in the room" from his finance job in New York [^111^][^113^].
Woman-Owned, LGBTQ+, Unapologetic
Birdhorse is proudly woman- and LGBTQ+-owned — a fact that matters in an industry still dominated by male faces and family names passed down through patriarchal lines. Corinne and Katie are partners in everything: love, business, harvest, and the long nights of fermentation monitoring. They are not the first women to make wine in California, but they are among the most visible of a new generation that refuses to apologise for taking up space [^114^].
Their mission extends beyond gender and sexuality. It is about diversification in all forms — of varieties, of regions, of the people who grow and make wine. They work with organic and sustainable growers, support underrepresented voices, and prove that "uncommon" does not mean "unworthy." Verdelho, Arneis, Valdiguié, Carignan, Barbera, Cinsault, Vermentino — these are not the grapes of Napa tasting rooms. They are the grapes of California's deeper history, its immigrant communities, its forgotten valleys [^111^].
The brightly coloured wax tops are not just aesthetic — they are a statement. These bottles stand out. They demand attention. They say: we are here, we are different, and we are delicious.
"It smells unmistakably like lemon verbena and wild fennel, with pulsing, bright, citrusy acidity that cuts through a round, gratifying texture. It's not light, or meek, or chuggable. It's a wine that demands its drinker to pause and pay attention."
— Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle
The Birdhorse Menagerie
All wines are single-varietal expressions from uncommon California grapes — no blends, no Chardonnay, no Cabernet, no Pinot Noir. Native yeast fermentation, no new oak, minimal sulfur. The range spans six varieties from seven vineyards, each treated with techniques tailored to its character: saignée and "bag wine" for reds, neutral puncheon lees-aging for whites, and a refusal to force any wine into a "light and bright" mould it doesn't want to occupy [^113^][^116^][^119^].