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Here we go. All right. Cool. Mike should pop in here in a minute.

Michael Cruse                 

Great.

Jerad                 

Yes. Oh, this is a name to be determined. Podcast. Wine, wine industry, spirits, but mostly wine. My name's Jared and I'm with my associate, Mike, who just popped in, and then we're also here withMichael Cruse fromCruse Wine Co. We just kind of chatted here for a few minutes, but yes. So we started this podcast series as a way to learn a little bit, and also because we're always learning for one, but also to share something, with the public and with, maybe clients or whoever, mayb it’s just wine nerds...and we'll just share some information that maybe wouldn't be able to happen before. So I have a little bit of extra time given the circumstances right now. So I figured how can I positively affect, or, you know, how could I positively add something to my community? So I was like, Hey, Mike, Right. Michael, would you do an interview with us, and he actually said, Yeah,

Michael Cruse                 

I'm not doing much either

Jerad                 

So I guess, tell us a little bit about yourself, Michael. Like, from the beginning. What got you into wine?

Michael Cruse                 

Um, well, I'm a Bay Area kid. I grew up in San Francisco, in Petaluma, went to college a Cal, and so I've been in Northern California all my life. I thought I was gonna be a research scientist and to make a long story short that didn't work out. At 26 found myself working at Sutter Home, in the lab there. And long story short, now I make wine. Ah, I think the thing was for me is that there wasn't, like, any magic bullet or a magic time that I knew that I was gonna be making wine or that that was going to be the thing. But I think when I sort of left science, I was so interested in doing things with my hands and producing a product that other people could understand. There was something so esoteric about what I was doing in science that It was hard for my parents, who are great folks but relatively blue collar people, to understand what I was doing. And I felt like there's something about a bottle, putting it in front of somebody, I don’t want to be crazy and say it was a universal language, but people know what wine is, you know what I mean?

Jerad                 

Yeah, it’s a form of expression, I think.

Michael Cruse                 

Right, Right. It's something that we can all engage in culturally pretty easily. For all the talk of it being a high end luxury product, and I think there is truth to that too. For the most part, people know how to open up a cork, you know?

Jerad                 

I guess one of the things that really attracted me, even before I knew anything about your wines, was because I'm a marketing background guy. So before I even knewMichael Cruse,Cruse Wine Co, UltraMarine, anything...I had seen a couple of the bottles on the shelves throughout California, and I think there's some imitations now, but at the time it was kind of unique. You had, like, a play on, classic oil with spray paint on the front. What's the idea behind that?

Michael Cruse                 

Well, I think that it's funny that there's an element of that that is so core to who we are, but it's not actually my work, if that make sense. I have a design team forcing form, they are two guys who have worked with on other projects, and friends of friends, and we had already talked, from the beginning, that I wanted them to do theCruse labels. And we had talked about kind of whatCruse was about, in this idea of it being, this kind of more older take on California wine and and what California used to do prior to the judgment of Paris and all these other things that have made wine a little more fanciful. But still acknowledging that, you know, value is not exactly something on the tip of everybody's tongue. So the idea really was this sort of more classic winemaking, which is the old engravings and all that, and then the splash of color being the sort of nod to modernity. And that was kind of it. And it's funny that was actually their second or third revision. I don't remember exactly, but the moment I saw it was like, That's it! They did one other revision in which, my sister and I found kicking around the office the other day because this was back in 2012 I guess when they first did them. It’s this, and we're gonna make a wine for it I know, but it's this Gothic...If you could envision an old English cemetery churchyard kind of thing. And it was just very like, I don’t know, Burton-esque or something like that. I'm very glad we didn't do it, because it's really quite dark. But, I think it would be so fun to do for, like, a one off or something like that. But I think about the sort of bigger question, I think, labels….the good part about having a small winery like us is that you get to do the whole widget and there's not eight people discussing whether or not that's the right label or

Jerad                 

decision by committee

Michael Cruse                 

Yeah, exactly. And I think that, like there's this element of, like, Why do we have women on two of the Pet Nats that are both Valdiguié and one of the guys that’s not Valdiguié, iIt doesn't matter. Those just worked in the context of what we were doing and I think that’s what I cared more about from the beginning. And it didn't matter if some labels make sense and some don't, it's just, there is a unifying thread to all of them, and I just really like that. 

Jerad                 

I like it to, you know? The thing is at this point, Instagram is some sort of marketing, whether we want it to be, whether we're happy with it, or whether we think it bastardizes whatever it may be. It's the same thing with food, you eat with your eyes before you do with your mouth, so I think it's important. But also I think it's cool to...you could tell there's some people that put a lot of thought and effort into it and then some that don’t. It doesn't mean that the wine is any better or worse, but I think it’s kind of cool to have that especially, as a business person, to have that thought behind the details.

Michael Cruse                 

Yeah, exactly. And I think the thing with social media generally. The thing that I find so interesting is that we have never had a moment in our lives where we can communicate with the people that are crafting the things that we enjoy on the level that we have now, right? And I think that like, so before we started recording we were talking about bread baking. You and I can bake bread, and my family has a long history of doing it, and I make bread with my grandma’s sourdough that's 70 years old or something like that at this point, and I've been making bread all my life, but

Jerad                 

I've only been doing it two weeks.

Michael Cruse                 

Well, perfect, Perfect. But it doesn't matter, right? The point is that we can also go on Instagram and we can see these people that do this professionally and they're still at home like us, you know, And we get see them make bread the way that they would do it at the bakery in their own home, and we can see that and we can interact with that. And, um, it's amazing to me, and I find that so wild. That's something that I really appreciate. I don't take that for granted, that people can text me and be like, you know, I opened a bottle of Ultramarine and was, like, this was the most amazing wine. How did you do it? You know, And look, at two in the morning I'm not gonna answer everybody, you know. But I do genuinely try to, interact with folks because I think that that's especially now, it means a lot to me.

Jerad                 

It’s important. I think it's the connection with a lot of things, whether it's food or wine or coffee or whatever. A lot of it’s time & place, but a lot of it's just the connection. I can't speak for everyone, but that’s a portion of why we like it, right? You know what I mean? Anyone could go down to the corner store and get a really cheap bottle of wine. But I think thankfully, you know, we're in a time where we're willing to put a little bit more effort into it and put a little bit more value into it. I'd rather drink less wine and have something nicer. I'd rather eat less meat but you know, better, better quality meat.

Michael Cruse                 

Exactly. And I think the thing is that it's not, um….we're not trying to get around the butcher. I have this way of talking about how to sell wine online, which I don't want to get too into the businessy side here, but I don't want to be the purveyor of luxury cars or something like that.  You know?  “I have the new model of this other thing. I only have two of them, and I want you to have it.”  I don't want to do that. I want to be the butcher, the old fashioned butcher. You come in. Maybe you're just gonna order some ground beef. I’ve got ground beef for you. You know? We’ve got Monkey Jacket all day, right? But I DO also want to be like, “hey, this alder springs blanc de noir, I only have six bottles of it to give you, But you and I have a long relationship. We've gone through a lot of things together. A lot of releases together. I want you to have this. This is something that you would enjoy”. Having that interaction with customers that maybe I've never even met is something that I really love. I know that went off a little ways.

Jerad                 

No, I think it's kind of an interesting thing. Are you mostly direct to consumers, are both? Half & Half...

Michael Cruse                 

Right now we probably are, by dollar amount, let's say 35-40% direct. Maybe another 30% export, and the remainder is, you know, domestic distribution.

Jerad                 

Cool. Just pure curiosity. What's export like? What countries are the most interested? 

Michael Cruse                 

It's Asia predominantly, because that's sort of where we started with export. So Japan is number one by a pretty wide margin. Singapore, South Korea. A little bit of Taiwan, then on the European side, it's mainly Scandinavia.

Jerad                 

Wow,  that's cool. World-wide.

Michael Cruse                 

It’s pretty wild. It’s not what I expected, ever. I’ll put it that way. Very grateful.

Jerad                 

I guess they talk about Ultramarine a little bit because I think that's what everyone always wants to hear about, learn about, talk about. We'll get it out of the way early. I love Ultramarine. It's I think everyone does. It's one of those things that you're just like, you just knock it out of the park, every time. So what's the backstory on ultramarine? How did that start? Did that start first or...

Michael Cruse                 

That started first. So I started that with a couple of buddies, Graham Waymeyer and Ryan Bradley. And even though I'm sort of the figurehead of it, and I do [laughs] most of the work too. They did start it with me, and we had no idea what we were doing. I think it's really important, people have this idea that somehow I had an idea that we were trying to do this and that wasn't the case at all. I mean, we basically got drunk on my back porch and took some extra wine and turned it into the 2008 vintage. And we did that a couple of years, 2008-2009. And then we sort of thought there was maybe some there, there and threw together a little bit of money and talked to Charlie Hunts. And that would have been the 2010 vintage. And we got very lucky. I mean, it was a great year for sparkling wine. Insane acid, and it was, I guess we had an idea of how we were going to make it, but that was refined over the years as well. So it's sort of like people kind of asked me what my favorite vintage of ultimate is? And I think the 2010 is the first one. It’s like, closest to my heart. But I think probably the 14’s are like the ones that I actually feel like, Okay, now I know what I'm doing. Sort of. Well, not know what I'm doing, but I feel like I kind of have a sense of...

Jerad                 

I guess just overarching, what is the thought process for Ultramarine. 

Michael Cruse                 

So, basically, the idea of ultramarine is that, and again, this is after 10 years of reflecting on what the hell we're doing. But I think it was this idea of,  if we took the techniques of the growers that we really respected and applied it to California. Kind of almost is a straight line. What would we get in California. Would we get something that was like what the growers were doing?, or do we get something that is a more pure expression of terroir in California but with bubbles in it. And I think we got the latter. And I think that as we've...well, I'll tell you a story….one of the things that was sort of troubling to me about Ultramarine is that from the beginning we knew that we could only make about well, from Charlie's Vineyard, maybe 500 cases, something like that. And starting in 13 we tried to add other vineyards onto it and it wouldn't work. I mean, we just couldn't get it to be what we sort of wanted. Now, 17, 18, 19 we added other vineyards, kind of doing the same way as before. But one of one of the things I sort of realized about sparkling wine generally is that when I started working with these other vineyards that the Ultramarine way turned out to only work in a small subset of vineyards. So I don’t want to get too esoteric here, but basically there's something about these very cool coastal vineyards that took the Ultramarine model and it still works kind of. And one of the things that we've been trying to do in the past, maybe five years withCruse Tradition and others, is taking other techniques and sort of making them work more broadly with different vineyards. I'm getting in the weeds, but I mean more like playing around with more oxidation. Or, Ultramarine, for example...

Jerad                 

No, I had the Tradition, what, two days ago and the oxidation on there was cool. But yeah, it was definitely, you could tell that it was, you know, on purpose, right?

Michael Cruse                 

Yeah, of course. It feels more round and welcoming I think than Ultramarine, which I think always takes a hard edge. [Jerad: Lasers!]. It's always funny. It's always funny, people are always like, you know, I expected Ultramarine to be like, I don't know, rich or something like that and it's not

Jerad                 

How is the 10 now? How does it taste? When's the last time you tried it? 

Michael Cruse                 

That's interesting. I tasted the 10 not too long ago, maybe six months, and it was good. The 11 now is tasting really well, like, just really starting to open up and you still get the laser precision, but just - the Blanc de Blanc I’m speaking of - has a little more kind of smoothness to it. The 11 rose is tasting great now, too. I think we released 90 cases of that one or something, so I don’t know how much exists.

Jerad                 

I think I only have a couple left. I don't have any of the 11 but I have last year's allocation of just, I think I have the blanc de noir and the rose left.

Michael Cruse                 

The fourteen’s were great. The fifteens were...they need time. But as with everything, right, if it's too early, just open it and let it sit in the bottle for little. It'll be fine, you know. Just drink it slower.

Jerad                 

Cool. Um so I guess your style of winemaking, you know, when we talked, when we first got hooked up together, you were like, “hey, I'm not a natural winemaker. I'm what you call, you know, natural adjacent”, which I think is a great description. But can you explain, kind of like the difference your technique? Or what your vision for that whole thing. I don't want you to compare yourself, but you know what I mean? Like, everybody's different. Everybody makes different decisions. What is that for you?

Michael Cruse                 

For me, I think, it's not even a criticism, but the reason why I said it that way to you is that I just don't love the idea of defining my wine by the winemaking, when the vineyards are vastly more important, right? So outside of Monkey Jacket and Tradition, every wine I make I guess, that's not true...The Nouveau as well. But anyway, outside of those three examples, the rest of the 15 some odd wines I make all have a vineyard on them, right? And I think that that's by far the most important part. Because I think that what we're trying to do withCruse Wine Co is show, and I'm not just us, obviously, there's plenty. But, I’m trying to show California with a little bit more, kind of pleasure, drinkability, and fruitiness I guess? We're not afraid of the sunshine or anything like that and I think that the vineyards that we work with all have something to say and I want to let them say it.

Jerad                 

I think you can blind your wines easier than most. I don't know if that's just me, but, I think it's that fruit character. I think you really figured out how to embrace that without being, you know, cloying or over the top. I don't know.

Michael Cruse                 

Well, thank you for saying that. Yeah, I think there's truth to that. I would say that in terms of the wine making, we're pretty much an open book. We don't filter anything. We don't add acid. We don't add bacteria or yeast outside of the terroir’s culture. So we're not doing anything weird. Generally, we only sulpher twice, maybe once in the case of like Chardonnay or Muscat. But I guess the thing for me is that, let's see, there’s a couple of vineyards we don't work with that are transitioning to organic. I think That's an important part to say. So not all the vineyards we work with are organic. So that already puts me out of the running I think for the natural wine thing. Even if they were organic, I still think that that's not necessarily, that title is not necessarily, the most important thing for me. So I don't know. It's sort of funny. It's like I I understand consumers wanting to use that as a way to classify folks, and writers too, and I think that that's fine. But just ask me about the wines and I'll tell you everything you want to know about them, you know what I mean?

Jerad                 

For sure. In general, there's definitely the people that are going to go with the dogma. And then luckily, the majority is more about that honesty. And just saying, hey, this is what it is…

 

Michael Cruse                 

Let me give you a good example. So the Deming Pet Nat in ‘18. One of the best sparkling wines we’ve ever made. Just. Straight. Juice. Nothing in it. Um, no. No sulpher, nothing. In ‘19 the ph is a little bit higher. It was a lower acid year. Turns out there's a little bit of mousiness if you don't sulpher the wine. So we sulphered a little bit, and now the wine is, maybe not as good as 18 but, still really quite good. And I don't like the idea that just adding the sulfur somehow diminishes the wine right? Like I didn't do anything crazy. I'm making the wine so that you guys could consume it. And I think that's the thing. And, like, I don't mind having that conversation

Jerad                 

For sure. Nobody wants a mousy wine. Even if you're a Natty head, nobody likes that. And there's got to be certain things, within reason that you have to do to save your investment. Your livelihood. You know, you only get one chance a year, right?

Michael Cruse                 

Right. Exactly. That's the wild part. I mean, if you think about it like that,  I'm 40, I turned 40 a month ago. Seems like 18 years ago now, but that was a month ago...

Jerad                

Nice. Happy Birthday!

Michael Cruse                 

 Ah, thank you, thank you. And I think like, how many more shots do I get? 30?

Jerad                 

Crazy!

Michael Cruse                 

Right! I mean, that’s wild!

Jerad                 

Sorry to interject. There's a guy, I don’t know if you know who he is. His name is Kiko Calvo. He's a Spanish wine maker. I forget from where, but supposedly he's been traveling the Northern and Southern hemispheres winemaking? I don't know if there's any truth to this, that he has the most harvests out off anyone, because he's been working the Northern and Southern Hemisphere staging.

Michael Cruse              

it's funny. When we opened up the winery, we did a lot of custom crush work for other people. We still do...because I'm poor... but, it turns out like an amazing way to learn more, too, because now you're getting,  instead of just your own wines, you also get other folks making their wine. Particularly for sparkling. It was a way for me to kind of instead of doing one tirage per year or two tirages per year, I was doing like 40-50. So it was very helpful to learn, and still is. But, yeah, you are limited by time in this industry, which is sort of an odd thing. It speaks more to the generational aspects of, I don't know, being a French winemaker, or Burgundian winemaker, that's had four or five generations of doing something.

Jerad                 

Yeah, no, it's cool. I think any kind of craft, I'm excited about. I own a coffee roastery, and I help distribute wine here in Nevada. Anything that I can relate to that takes a lot of practice and skill and thought, and planning. There is not a lot of debate involved, you know, it’s a craft. It's kind of like...I busted my ass to do what I did, and this is what I came out with….

Michael Cruse                 

I travel to Japan a fair amount. I mean, not now! But I would be. It's always funny.There's this element of winemakers getting, and I think a lot of different types of celebrities in Japan getting, elevated to some type of celebrity status, period. And I think one of the things that I find funny is that I think all I do is craft, same as you, right? There's no perfect. There's no suddenly I'm done, I've finished it, where it's exactly what I wanted it to be and nothing more. And there's also no magic change that’s going to happen this year for something that is conservatively 15,000 years old, you know? I mean, let's say 5000 in the modern era. I’m not going to magically understand something differently than somebody did 3000 years ago.

Jerad                 

That's crazy. How that works, right?

Michael Cruse                 

Yeah. I mean, I have a forklift. That’s cool. And my press is probably better than they had, but that's about it, you know.

Jerad                 

Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. It's crazy to think about. I guess another crazy thing is obviously the climate that we're living in right now. Today is April 13th 2020. I have a cafe here in Las Vegas that closed almost a month ago. With the climate, hopefully this current virus thing is gonna taper off soon. It looks like it already is, but it's a new world now. Without being too much of a crazy alarmist about it. Does that plays in the the decisions you make? 

Michael Cruse                 

It's sort of weird, because down to the brass tacks, winemaking is essentially a manufacturer, right? So things taking a month off for two months off, you kind of have to run your business so that you're built for that, right? Because anything can happen that blocks production. Your glass could be stuck in China. I don't use chinese glass, but whatever, it could be stuck wherever it is or you know, and so little dips are OK.

Jerad                 

I can vouch for that glass. I've carried a lot of those cases...

Michael Cruse                 

There's production elements, right? And that's that's easy stuff, kind of. What I am really curious about is the restaurants that have been just the lifeblood and the supporters of me, and not just me, but so many other small wineries that people just took chances on. Oh, man. I mean, I want nothing more than to go out and eat now, man, I want nothing more than that.

Jerad                 

And we see it here in Nevada and specifically in Las Vegas. You know, our on on-site consumption is well over 90%. So it's crazy, and it gives me goose bumps and yeah, we're all here to try to make it work, you know?

Michael Cruse                 

That's the crazy part. Like, can you imagine a casino opening up in three months and then every other seat is blocked off or something? Do you know what I mean? To maintain distance? ...I don't know. I don't know what that world looks like. 

Jerad                 

We will soon Yeah, it's crazy. I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful. Some positives  have come out of this. I think people are going to shed the fat, you know what I mean? They're only going to do things that make them happy. People are going to understand that, they're going to have to vote with their wallets a lot of the time, with a lot of decisions. People hear it, and you see it all the time...buy local. Those things are important. You know? What's gonna happen to that small producer, that small wine producer or that small restaurant or that small wine shop, or you know, any of those things? Um, it's gonna be more important. 

 

Michael Cruse                 

I think at this point, don't worry about the producers. Do you know what I mean? That's the thing. I think most of us...I'm not saying we're not in trouble, we’re definitely in trouble. I'm highly leveraged.... But I mean, the thing is that the people that I really do worry about are the people that are shut down completely like you. You're saying with your cafes and the restaurants in the wine shops and things like that. That’s who I really worry about. Because that's where people are being creative.

Jerad                 

...they're being creative. But it’s also that time in place where those things are experienced, right? Those moments, that's where those moments happen, and those memories happened. All right...let's take it back up! [laughs] It's not that dark, I'm hopeful, but it's, you know, it's the reality that we're living in right now.

Michael Cruse                 

I think it's funny. You have to be hopeful. And if we're not, then we're all in the same boat anyway. You know?

Jerad                 

Yeah, for sure. So, If you weren't making wine, what do you think you'd be doing right now?

Michael Cruse                 

I mean, that's really funny. I think I probably would figure out a way to go back into science, I think. I think that's probably...I just love...

Jerad                 

Like biochem?

Michael Cruse                 

Bio-chem, yeah. I still love the research aspect of things, and I still love the...what i always liked about biochemistry is the doing stuff with your hands, on that too.. I still have enough of a wet lab to kind of keep me working, So I would probably be doing that. Um, that's that's a dumb answer, but if it happened later because this has happened now, let's just say I could drive a forklift in a warehouse if this doesn't work out. You know?

Jerad                 

For sure. We all have training in a lot of different things now! What are you excited about? As far as other winemakers, what do you like to drink? Like what keeps you inspired?

Michael Cruse                 

fThis has been a eally weird time for drinking because there's no reason not to drink everything right?....

Jerad Howard                 

I'm drinking right now. 

Michael Cruse                 

So I've been opening up a lot of stuff. I've been drinking a lot of things that I thought I wouldn't be opening so soon. A lot of the fun bottles that my friends from champagne have given me over the years, a lot of that stuff has been being opened

Jerad                 

Any cool grower stuff? What are you excited about? 

Michael Cruse                 

It's all basically all grower stuff. I mean, I'm so dumb in terms of exciting….like, I don't really have that many new producers that I drink. But, um, you know, I was gifted an amazing bottle of Marina Bella Drew that I opened up the other day that that's great. Etienne Calsac and Jérôme Prévost, Alexandre Chartogne. Those are all my go to’s I guess and they inspire the shit out of me. Truthfully. Other, smaller producers? I mean, let's see, what do we open the other day that I loved? Um, some of Jaimee Motley's wines are always impressive to me. Any time I get something from Hardy to drink, or any of the [garbled],  I'm always excited to drink too. I don't know if those are inspiring so much as they are kind of just making sure that we're on the right page or something like that. 

Jerad                 

Yeah. Cool. Do you have anything else to add? Or anything else that you want to chat about?

Michael Cruse                 

No, I'm just really glad for chatting with you and hanging out. Hope every safe out there!

Jerad                 

I think it's cool. This is a first for us, and we're going to continue to do these. I think Hardy’s going to come and maybe do the next one. We're gonna start with a lot of our  favorite domestic producers and then and then go from there. My Spanish is bad...

Michael Cruse                 

Hardy too huh? ...

Jerad                 

What?

Michael Cruse                 

No, I was just gonna say Hardy is hard. He's  great and it's gonna be much better than me. Definitely.

Jerad                 

Hardy. He can talk to anybody.He's like electricity in the room.

Michael Cruse                 

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So hard. He comes from a sales background. I come from a lab background and that's all you need to know about the two of us.

Jerad                 

It's okay. There's no judgment. I think for us, it's just kind of opening that door and hopefully people can  listen and just say, Hey,I've learned some cool stuff about Michael, or Cruise wine, or whatever. For us it's just about, like you said, trying to open up that connection a little bit. Well, cool. Thanks. Thanks for chatting with me today. And  we'll talk soon.

Michael Cruse                 

Thanks so much. Man. Talk to you. Thanks. All right.

Jerad                 

My name's Jerad J. And thank you for listening to TBD: to be determined, a wine and spirits podcasts

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End Transcript

**The views and opinions expressed within this podcast are those of the hosts & guests, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of their respective employers or associated businesses. Any content provided by our guests and hosts are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any group, club, organization, company, individual, anyone or anything.