Birdhorse Evina Vineyard Verdelho Contra Costa County 2021

Birdhorse is a shiny new venture conceptualized by two fierce women, Corinne Rich and Katie Rouse, while working a harvest in South Africa. The thought of creating their own brand was inspired by their invaluable experience in this unique wine-growing region that was, and still is, abuzz with young winemakers who seek to highlight lesser-known varietals. So the women carried this verve home to the states and launched Birdhouse with the goal to champion the unsung heroes of grape varietals.  

Corinne and Katie work a stone’s throw away from each other by day; Corinne recently joined the team at Scribe as the Assistant Winemaker, and Katie is the Assistant Winemaker at Bedrock. And despite throwing all of their passion into their day jobs, they still reserve enough gas in the tank to knock it out of the park with their fantastic new Birdhouse wines. The name Birdhouse intends to evoke a sense of adventure and whimsy rooted in the familiar - the same feeling that Corinne and Katie hope to express through each of their wines. It is a thing you can conjure in your mind’s eye, a faint outline, but requires a curious and open mind to fill in the details. That is Birdhouse: a desire for understanding, grounded by your own experience and perception yet fueled by your imagination.

The fruit for their 2021 Verdelho was sourced from the Evina Vineyard, which grows in the town of Knightsen in Contra Costa County, just 2 miles from the San Joaquin Delta. When Corinne and Katie first discovered this vineyard, they approached the farmer, Tom Morgan, with a deal of their own. They offered their own sweat equity plus an increase in cost for fruit if Tom would allow them to assist with transitioning the vineyard to organic practices. When Corinne poured this wine for us, she shared that organic farming practices are so integral to Birdhorse’s missions that instead of searching for vineyards that already implement organic farming, they look for vineyards that are on the verge of taking the plunge but need a little nudge. In this way, Corinne and Katie feel that they can have a lasting impact on the industry beyond the wines that they bottle. 

The fruit was hand-harvested in the second week of August 2021. It was then whole-cluster-pressed to a stainless steel tank where it was hyper-oxidized using pumpovers for 4 days. Once fermentation began, the oxidized juice was transferred down to two 500L puncheons where it was fermented to dry. Malolactic fermentation was partially arrested, and the wine was aged for six months before being racked for bottling. What results is a wine that emanates all the beauty of a warm spring afternoon. Aromas of tangerine and Meyer lemon play against a lean minerality and hint of pineapple upside-down cake, creating a sweet and balanced nose. On the palate, crunchy green apple meets a gravelly texture to lend a beautiful tension of acidity to this wine, with flavors of lemon meringue and fresh pineapple.