2015 Blanc de Blancs Charles Heintz Vineyard

The setting is about as unglamorous as it gets. Michael Cruse's small but functional warehouse-like winery is located in Petaluma, next to Highway 101, but not close to much else. Don't let the stripped down setting fool you. Cruse makes a wide range of incredibly distinctive wines here. The sparkling wines are especially of note. Cruse began his foray into sparkling wines with Ultramarine, a label that focuses on single-variety, single-vintage, single-site bottlings, an aesthetic that has become increasingly popular in Champagne. At Ultramarine, the wines are done with blocked malo, aged in oak with minimal SO2 and bottled with little or no dosage. Cruse recently introduced the Tradition under his own Cruse Wine Co. label. That wine is a Pinot Noir/Chardonnay blend from a variety of vineyard sources, done with a small amount of perpetual reserve. It undergoes full malo and is aged in both barrique and steel, with no SO2, and bottled with no dosage. It is also the steal in this range. Quite simply, I can't recommend these wines highly enough.