David Bruce, an icon in winemaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains and an early advocate of California pinot noir, died April 28 at age 89.
Bruce had both chardonnay and pinot noir planted at the steep hillside vineyard on Bear Creek Road where he eventually built his home and, later, a winery. He purchased the land at a 2,100-foot elevation in 1961 and began making name-brand wines in 1964.
Dr. David, as locals and regular visitors called him, always loved to tell the story about buying a bottle of 1954 Richebourge Burgundy for the immense sum of $7.50 when he was a poor medical student at Stanford (most wines were around a dollar at the time) that sparked his obsession with pinot noir.
Winemaker Tony Craig, who started working at David Bruce in 1991 as a cellar hand, said that at that time the winery was making a crazy number of varieties, from zinfandel to Riesling to Carignane, but very little of it was pinot noir.
“I said to Dr. David, ‘Why aren’t we concentrating on pinot noir?’ I like to focus. This is how you get results. This is how you achieve success.”
Two things came about that turned the tide. One was when estate vineyard started to die from Pierce’s disease and needed to be replanted. They did so thoughtfully, using different rootstocks and clones to maximize complexity. While they waited for the vines to become established, they got some pinot noir that had been planted at Chalone earlier. They did well with it.
The other was landing on the cover of Wine Spectator in 1995 as one of the top five pinot noir producers to watch in California.
“We were getting great reviews and scores all over in the press, but that one really propelled our popularity. It was a golden moment for us,” recalls Craig.
Immense growth followed. This meant they had to find new vineyard sources, and they needed more space to make more wine to keep up with growing demand.
Craig recalls that production was around 17,000 cases when he arrived, and ramped up to 85,000 cases when he left in 2003. When the money started coming in, they convinced Bruce to build a new winery.
Getting new equipment was always a challenge, as Bruce drove insisted that things could be fixed instead of replaced.
“David was a child of the depression, so he hated debt,” says Craig. “Whenever we needed some equipment, we would couch it as an experiment. Instead of saying, ‘We need 200 new barrels for this vintage,’ we would say, ‘We’re thinking of doing 150 different barrel experiments this year.’ Being a scientist at heart, he loved the chemistry part of it. … He was among the first winemakers in his day to do whole cluster fermentation.”
Vineyard manager Greg Stokes increasingly had his hands full as Dr. David wanted to source more pinot noir.
“At one point,” says Craig, “we were getting fruit from 50 vineyards, from Mendocino to Santa Barbara. It was insane! I was constantly driving to the winemaking facility we were using in Paso Robles, even after the estate winery was ready. We needed the space.”
Craig, who went to Savannah-Chanelle and now makes wine for Silver Mountain and Gali Wines, says he learned a lot from Bruce about pinot noir and how it performed all over the state. “It was quite a moment for us. We were getting an education in pinot noir throughout California.”
Former employee Roberta Worth, who is now with Wrights Station, started working at David Bruce in the late 1990s. “I feel so fortunate to have begun my career in the wine industry there,” she says. “The team was absolutely incredible. Each person could do the other person’s job if needed, they were so compatible. It was a joy to see the harmony.”
Craig says they had weekly tastings every Thursday with the entire cellar team, and Dr. David would show up eager to see what they had come up with.
“The wine world was like Disneyland to him,” Craig adds. “He was like a kid in a candy store. He was fascinated by it, and he loved it. When we were finally profitable, he was having a blast. We were making our best wines, and we got so many accolades. It was a joyous hour.
“I will always remember him as a happy-go-lucky guy. He loved to have fun and experiment. It was one of the many reasons we had such success.”