Ep 220: Crux Winery -- Putting the Rhone into Russian River Valley of Sonoma, CA

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2018

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Crux Winery owners Brian Callahan and Steven Gower (some of the nicest dudes you ever want to meet) craft small lots of Rhône varietals–Grenache, Petite Sirah, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache Blanc and Viognier–with some Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc. Their wines capture the unique characteristics of Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley and are rich, complex and balanced, without excessive alcohol levels or overripe fruit flavors.

One amazing thing about these guys (there are a few): This is their other job. They each hold down big corporate jobs in the health sector and have given up all spare time to dedicate their lives to making insanely good wine farmed in a sustainable and earth-friendly manner. Their grapes are sourced from their own vineyards and other select vineyard sites owned by growers with a similar philosophy who have also embraced environmental practices in vineyard management.

Some topics we cover:

How they wound up finding each other and getting into winemaking
How they decided to take the business to the next level
The balancing act of holding down corporate jobs and running a winery -- holding down 2 full time jobs!
The business of wine versus their corporate jobs
Terroir, native yeast, and doing Rhône in Russian River Valley
The grapes and the wine -- how they grow or source the fruit, how they make wine, and why the stuff is so outstanding!

A fantastic look at these guys are hustling, making fantastic wine, and keeping their dream alive to eventually give up their day jobs and be winemakers and winegrowers full time.

They, of course, will be at Sonoma Underground on February 24, 2018 at Longboard Vineyards in Sonoma.

Thanks to our (delicious) sponsor, HelloFresh:

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for
0:08.0	downloading Wine for Normal People Radio,
0:10.0	the podcast for people who like wine but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:14.0	I'm Elizabeth Schneider, a certified Silmaier and certified specialist of wine.
0:20.0	And I'm MC Ice, just a wine-loving normal person.
0:23.0	Today we have Crux, which is a small winery in Russian River Valley
0:28.0	that's run by two unbelievably likable, smart, fantastic guys guys Brian Callahan and Steve Gower.
0:36.6	Crux is all wrong all the time, except for a little Zinfinelinel, which is Croatian.
0:43.0	They make small lots of stuff like Grinash Blanch and Grinash Noir, Petit, Siras, Siras,
0:49.7	Moved, Bue and Zimphodel and Sylvie blog.
0:53.1	Oh, I forgot about this Sylvie and Bloc.
0:54.4	That's not Roney either.
0:55.6	Their wines are balanced, moderate.
0:58.2	They're just damn tasty.
0:59.7	They source from their own vineyards and vineyards that are owned by people who aren't jerks and who are good stewards of the land, which is a key for Steve and Brian for making great wine.
1:10.0	The biggest thing about Crocks for all of us listening to the story and dreaming of
1:14.7	making wine someday, you guys have the ultimate side hustle. So you hold down seriously important
1:21.2	corporate jobs, which we will talk about and you make
1:24.3	awesome wine it's unbelievable so welcome to the podcast Brian and Steve well thank you
1:28.6	Elizabeth we are happy to be here how did you wind up making wine in a garage? Is that how it started? And then now you're a going concern. Tell us your whole story from A to Z, please. Well, Steve and I met in 2005 when I moved into the neighborhood next door to Steve.
1:49.6	And you brought property values down a lot?
1:51.7	Is that why he was really mad?
	...

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