Pride Month Pours 2026
The LGBTQ+ winemakers shaping the industry — and the menu to celebrate them.
Pride is a celebration, a memorial and a market signal — all at once. Where you spend money this June matters. These are the LGBTQ+ owned and queer-led wineries making some of the most interesting wine in America, and the table to pour them on.
The Producers to Know
Equality Vines (Sonoma) is a benefit-corporation winery built around social causes — its Love Wins Pinot Noir donates proceeds to LGBTQ+ nonprofits. Hammersky Vineyards in Paso Robles is owned by Doug Hauck and pours rich, sun-drenched Cabernet and Zinfandel from a stunning estate. Iron Hub Winery in Amador County crafts old-vine Zinfandel and Barbera with grace and grip.
On the natural side, Donkey & Goat (Berkeley) and Margins Wine (Santa Cruz Mountains) work with vineyards run by historically excluded growers and lead the queer natural wine conversation. Inconnu Wines pours California Pinot with a sense of mystery and pedigree. Look for newer Oregon labels featured at the annual Queer Wine Fest in the Willamette Valley.
Internationally, Champagne Leclerc Briant in Épernay has been a vocal industry ally with openly inclusive leadership. In Sicily, COS works with queer-allied importers and amphora-aged Frappato that drinks beautifully chilled.
A Pride Dinner Menu
A great Pride dinner is colorful, generous and easy to share. Here is a five-course menu, each paired with a bottle that gives back or stands for something.
- Welcome: A flute of Champagne Leclerc Briant Brut Réserve, or Raventós i Blanc Cava Rosado for the value play.
- First course — burrata with peach & basil: Donkey & Goat Ramato skin-contact Pinot Gris.
- Salad — heirloom tomato, watermelon, feta: Wölffer Estate Summer in a Bottle Rosé (or any Provence rosé from our 2026 Rosé Guide).
- Main — grilled salmon with herbs: Inconnu Pinot Noir, served lightly chilled.
- Cheese course: Hammersky Estate Cabernet Sauvignon — bold enough for aged cheddar and Manchego.
- Dessert — strawberry shortcake: Equality Vines Love Wins Pinot Noir or a sparkling rosé from Nyetimber.
Inclusive Pours: NA & Low-Alc
Sober and California-sober guests deserve the same treatment as everyone else. Pour French Bloom Le Rosé (non-alcoholic sparkling) for the toast, Giesen 0% Sauvignon Blanc with the salad, and a Wölffer No. 139 Dry Rosé Cider with the main. Browse our full non-alcoholic wine collection for more.
Beyond June
Rainbow marketing is easy in June. Buying these wines in October, January and March is what actually moves the industry. Get on producer mailing lists, ask your local shop to stock LGBTQ+ owned labels, and request these bottles by name at restaurants. Visibility is built by orders.
Queer-Owned Wine Bars Worth Traveling For
The wine list matters, but so does the room. Ruffian in New York's East Village runs one of the most adventurous natural wine programs in the city under a queer-led team. Henrietta Hudson in the West Village is the longest-running lesbian bar in America and now pours a serious by-the-glass list. The Eagle in San Francisco has a quietly excellent rosé and Cru Beaujolais program. Lulu's in Wilton Manors, Florida pours Wölffer and McBride Sisters by the glass. In London, The Joiners Arms revival project and The Glory both back queer winemakers on their lists. In Berlin, SilverFuture in Neukölln. Visibility is built one bottle at a time.
The Organizations Doing the Work
Two groups are worth knowing. Queer Wine Fest, founded by Remy Drabkin in the Willamette Valley, is the first wine festival in the United States dedicated to LGBTQ+ winemakers. It runs every June in McMinnville, Oregon and now travels to other cities through the year. The Lift Collective works to make the wine industry more equitable across gender, sexuality and race, and runs mentorship programs that have placed queer winemakers in cellars around the world. Donate. Buy tickets. Show up.
Pride Wine Travel 2026
If you want to drink with intention this June, build a weekend around a queer-led winery. The Willamette Valley is the easy choice: Maison Noir, Abbey Creek and the Queer Wine Fest are all within an hour of Portland. Sonoma's Equality Vines hosts a Pride pour on the second weekend of June. The Berkeley natural wine scene around Donkey & Goat is walkable from BART. In Europe, the Loire Valley has a growing roster of queer-owned natural wine domaines worth a long weekend. Build your own route with our 2026 wine travel planner.
Why the Wine Industry Took So Long
Wine has always had queer people in it — the somm room, the cellar, the tasting bench. What it has not always had is visible queer ownership. The economics are part of the answer: vineyards are expensive, generational and overwhelmingly inherited. Banks have historically lent more readily to straight, white, male first-time owners. The first openly gay-owned American winery to make national press only did so in the 1990s. The producers in this guide changed that math by building from scratch, often through direct-to-consumer wine clubs that bypassed the gatekeepers entirely. The 2026 generation is now planting estates, training the next round of winemakers and proving the model. Pour with that history in mind.
Build your Pride dinner with iQ
Tell the iQ Sommelier your menu and dietary needs (vegan, halal, alcohol-free) and get pairings instantly — built for every guest at the table.