Alex Krause and John Locke founded Birichino in Santa Cruz, CA in 2008. Drawing on a combined four decades of making wine in California, France, Italy, and beyond, they are focused on attaining the perfect balance of perfume, poise, and puckishness. Sourcing from several carefully farmed, family-owned, own-rooted 19th and early 20th century vineyards (and a few from the late disco era) planted by and large in more moderate, marine-influenced climates, their preoccupation is to safeguard the quality and vibrance of their raw materials. He worked with talented Old and New World winemakers over the past couple of decades in California, including Randall Grahm, and with so many other mentors in Europe, such as Andre Ostertag in Alsace and a host of small producers from Madiran to the Minervois to Puglia to Piemonte and beyond (Maharashtra.)
About the name– Birichino- biri-kino. Like locksmiths in the United States that add additional AAAs onto their names to be the first listed in the telephone directory, and drawing on deep reserves of innate marketing genius, we went in search of something unpronounceable to English speakers, yet also difficult to remember that began with A or B. Alluce was an early favorite, seeming to evoke lightness and air in English, but in fact translating as big toe. Seeking something with that playfulness, though about some things we profess to be deadly serious, and inspired by the surprising, slightly racy character of our first wine, the Malvasia Bianca that leads one on to thinking sweet, and delivers something else entirely, we hit on Birichino, meaning naughty in Italian. And who doesn’t consider themselves just a little bit naughty, after all? Media Inquiries: alex@birichinovino.com | https://www.birichino.com/
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
Our winery was born from a chance lunch in 2007 with a buyer from the world’s largest wine purchasing organization, the SAQ in Quebec. At the time, I worked for another California winery when he asked for someone to make a wine from his favorite grape, Malvasia Bianca. When my employer passed, I took the leap—cashing out my 401k to produce 4,000 cases of a single, obscure variety on pure speculation. Thankfully, we won the Quebec tender and sold every bottle.
From there, we grew organically, expanding to Sweden, Finland, the UK, and eventually across the U.S. Today, we’re still just two co-founders and two part-time employees, working out of a friend’s custom crush in the Salinas Valley. No grand architecture, no sculpture garden—just a beat-up truck, old barrels, and deep partnerships with multigenerational growers across California.
We work with historic, dry-farmed, often organic vineyards—including the world’s oldest Cinsault vines (Lodi, 1886), century-old Grenache at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Chardonnay from Paul Masson’s original cuttings. Our winemaking is intentionally minimal: native fermentations, old barrels, no fining or filtration, and as few new barrels as possible. Our mission is simple—preserve California’s heritage vineyards and make wines of freshness, site expression, and honesty.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
If we weren’t constrained by being entirely a bootstrap operation that has no investors and no bank loans (and we kept our day jobs for the first 9 years of business) we’d probably be making wine back in the place that started this journey for both of us -in France. I was lucky to be a student in Provence for a year and a half, and lived in Paris when my father taught there. John similarly spent years in Normandy and then in Alsace working for André Ostertag. The idea of having a small winemaking operation in the southwest, or in my old stomping grounds of Provence holds appeal, but the realities of being entirely hands-on here as we personally make every picking decision and haul almost all our fruit ourselves make having a second operation half a world away in the same harvest cycle an impossibility. I also wouldn’t mind if Frank Gehry wanted to build us a winery, too. Maybe a slightly smaller version of the Guggenheim Bilbao.
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
Our Besson Grenache is the clearest expression of our winemaking philosophy. Sourced from one of California’s oldest dry-farmed, organically grown Grenache vineyards—planted in 1910 at the western edge of Gilroy in Hecker Pass—it strikes a rare balance: fully ripe yet fresh, thanks to cool marine air funneled in from Monterey Bay.
This site consistently gives us a distinctive style of Grenache—floral, spicy, almost alpine in character, with notes reminiscent of amaro, bay laurel, and Christmas spice. In low-yielding years like 2023, the fruit is especially concentrated and structured, built for aging. In fact, early vintages from 2010 and 2013 are still evolving beautifully.
Though not our rarest or priciest wine, Besson Grenache has become our flagship, recognized even in the Master of Wine exam for its singular, hard-to-place profile. It’s a wine that speaks more of site than style, and we feel lucky to work with such a remarkable vineyard. I love Grenache because it reminds me of Pinot Noir (I’m from Oregon after all). Read my review of this one.
Bonus Question: What’s the one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
Surprisingly, two of our biggest export markets are Norway and… France. Yep—France. Turns out, the French, especially in winegrowing regions like Champagne, Burgundy, Bordeaux, and the Loire, have started to embrace wines that don’t hit them over the head with oak and extraction. Our style—lighter-handed, site-driven, and refreshingly uncalculated—seems to resonate with palates used to nuance over muscle.
We don’t chase color or use tricks like MegaPurple. We just try to make wines that feel alive, evolve with a meal, and age with grace.
As for the name—BIRICHINO means “naughty” in Italian. We picked it in a week, flipping through an Italian dictionary to find something near the top alphabetically (tastings strategy). It suited our Malvasia Bianca: wildly aromatic but bone dry, a little surprising, a little mischievous. Like us—serious about the wine, but not much else.