BY NANCY ZIMMERMAN | PHOTOS BY KATE RUSSELL
Defying all odds and conventional wisdom, the Gruet family has turned locally made sparkling wine into a go-to favorite
It’s not uncommon for young people to come up with wacky ideas to feed their lust for adventure, but their wiser and more experienced parents usually try to talk them out of it. It was just the opposite with the Gruet family: patriarch Gilbert Gruet, who had produced high-quality Champagne in his Bethon, France, family vineyard since 1952, thought it would be exciting to start a branch of his business in America, and ventured here in 1983 to find a suitable location. After determining that land in the California wine country was too expensive, he checked out New Mexico on the recommendation of his French colleagues and purchased some acreage near Lordsburg, in the southwest corner of the state the following year. But because he was busy running the business back in Bethon, he sent his children, Laurent, Nathalie, and Jacqueline, to head up the fledgling enterprise. Gilbert and his wife, Danielle, returned every six months to help out, but it was up to the kids to realize the potential he saw in this unlikely locale.
“My dad was a true pioneer, willing to start something totally oddball in the middle of nowhere,” says Nathalie, who directs the day-to-day business of the winery. “He said that we probably couldn’t make a dent in California, but if we could succeed in New Mexico, we could succeed anywhere in the world. We were very young, in our 20s, and we had adventurous spirits. We had grown up watching John Wayne movies and were fascinated by the Wild West, so the idea of moving to New Mexico was exciting for us. But it was very hard at first.”
New Mexico’s poor soil is actually an asset because it forces the vines to dig their roots deep to obtain their sustenance, which concentrates the grapes’ flavor.
Laurent oversees the winemaking process at the Albuquerque winery. Left: High altitude and large temperature swings improve the grapes’ flavor and acidity.
Indeed, when the Gruet kids first arrived in Lordsburg, they were shocked to find a flat, parched, sparsely vegetated landscape that seemed the polar opposite of the verdant, rolling countryside they had left behind in France. Unable to speak English and unfamiliar with American culture generally and New Mexican culture in particular, they felt as if they had landed on another planet.
“The culture shock was huge,” recalls Nathalie, who had come with her then-husband and their four-month-old son, Sofian Himeur. “We lived in a trailer. There were no bakeries, no pastry shops, nowhere to shop other than Kmart. I planted a vegetable garden and a small patch of grass where Sofian could play, but I was afraid to let him because of the rattlesnakes and tarantulas. It was so hot and dry. My sister, Jacqueline, said, ‘Hell, no!’ and went right back to France, but the rest of us stayed on. I think you have to be young and a little clueless, with a sense of adventure in your soul, to make a challenge like that work.”
And make it work she did, forming friendships in the community, picking up some Spanish, and polishing her English by religiously watching Little House on the Prairie, whose slang-free dialogue helped her with her basic conversation skills. She quickly discovered that Champagne and even still wine were considered exotic by the locals, whose beverage of choice was beer, and her typically French flair for fashion ensured that she was invariably overdressed for social occasions like Super Bowl parties, also a new experience. “I had never worn jeans, which is what everyone wore, and at parties they only served beer, which I don’t care for. So after our vineyard’s first release, I started bringing our sparkling wine to those parties.”
But that first release was five years in the making, so it was to be quite a while before their new friends were treated to the Gruet product. The whole family pitched in, including Gilbert and Danielle, who arrived to help out. They donned goggles and bandanas to protect them from the blowing dust as they dug holes in the fields, then lay on their stomachs on a flatbed pulled by a tractor as they dropped the vines into the holes. “We’d work all day, then gather around the table to share a meal,” recalls Nathalie. “It was like a family reunion.”
Following a lot of hard work and a few costly mistakes, they were finally able to make a reality out of the seemingly impossible proposition of producing fine sparkling wine in the arid expanses of southwestern New Mexico. A particularly good harvest in 1987 led to Gruet’s release of its first Brut and Blanc de Noirs two years later. “We entered our first international wine competition in San Francisco and won two medals,” says Laurent. “We were ecstatic!” Since then, Gruet has won more than 600 medals, and their Blanc de Noirs was ranked number 43 in Wine Spectator’s 2011 list of the top 100 wines in the world.
Wine connoisseurs both here and abroad were impressed and intrigued by the Gruet family’s ability to wrest a superior product out of such a seemingly inhospitable landscape. But it turns out that New Mexico’s poor soil is actually an asset because it forces the vines to dig their roots deep to obtain their sustenance, which concentrates the grapes’ flavor. The higher altitude causes large temperature swings from day to night that make the grapes retain their acidity, and the dry air means that there’s far less rot and mildew, which improves the consistency of the quality of the crop.
“Our sparkling wine is very balanced in its acidity, its pH,” says Laurent, who oversees the entire production, from planting to fermenting to bottling. He uses the méthode champenoise, the traditional process that entails a secondary fermentation in the bottle. The first fermentation turns the grapes into wine; the second adds the effervescence by trapping the carbon dioxide. Laurent also insists that the grapes be harvested by hand, a slower, more labor-intensive process that allows the pickers to be more selective, using only the healthiest grapes and inflicting less damage. “The climate is different here than it is in France, of course,” Laurent says, “but the wine is brighter, bolder.”
Shortly before he passed away in 1999, Gilbert sampled that year’s release, which his son had smuggled to him as he lay in his hospital bed. “He fell in love with the wine,” says Laurent. “It was the last wine he drank. This is the reason we call it ‘Cuvée Gilbert Gruet.’”
Nathalie’s son, Sofian, now serves as Gruet’s marketing manager and brand educator, and he cites his visionary grandfather as his idol. Sofian went straight to work in the winery out of high school, and his long hours loading cases and doing the winery’s grunt work prepared him well for his current role, he says. “People think that this is a glamorous business,” he says. “But the only thing glamorous about sparkling wine is drinking it, which isn’t something you do all day while you’re busy planting, harvesting, producing, and marketing it. It takes several years after planting the grapes to get a good enough harvest, and then the product must be aged, so it’s not something you get into if you’re looking for a quick return on your investment. You have to know what you’re doing, and you need a lot of patience and commitment.”
I think you have to be young and a little clueless, with a sense of adventure in your soul, to make a challenge like that work.
Nathalie Gruet, Sofian Himeur, Laurent Gruet, Laurent and Nathalie’s nephew Christopher Henrich, and Laurent’s daughter Laura. Top: Laurent and his father inspect the vines in Lordsburg, circa 1990. Center: The family trailer, the first Gruet home in New Mexico.
Marketing manager Sofian Himeur oversees distribution at the winery. Left: Laurent evaluates a sample of sparkling wine. Current distribution is 125,000 cases a year. The Gruets hope to double that amount within five years.
You also need to truly love the entire process, as it entails long workdays and many years with no cash flow to get started. “I’m very fortunate to be able to do this work, and I truly love what I do,” says Laurent, who happily puts in 18-hour days at the winery.
The Lordsburg experiment lasted some 15 years, but the family decided to sell the land and purchase new acreage near Truth or Consequences, where the land had more slope and the soil was loamier, with better drainage. It was also closer to a water source and to the winery in Albuquerque that Gilbert designed himself, making it easier to visit the vineyard and transport the grapes for processing. “This terroir is one of the best in New Mexico,” says Laurent.
After meeting the challenges of growing the grapes and producing the wine, there was still the task of breaking into the market. The first order of business was to determine the price point. “You have to find that sweet spot,” says Sofian. “The cost of production is high—the equipment, the land, the labor, the time involved—so if you want to get your investment back, you have to offer good wine at a great value, priced to sell. For us, that was $7 or $8 by the glass, with the bottles priced a dollar or two lower than, say, Chandon or Mumm. If it’s the same price as brands people already know, they’re not going to take the risk of trying a new brand, but if it’s a little less expensive, they’ll give it a shot. So we did that, and people appreciated the quality and the value. Word of mouth was the best marketing strategy—people would go into stores and ask for it.”
In addition to the nonvintage sparkling wines, which use a blend of grapes from different years, Gruet also produces premium vintage sparkling wines at a slightly higher price point and even some still wines like Pinot Noir and Syrah. “We don’t make these vintage wines every year, only when we have a particularly great harvest,” says Laurent. “Our Grande Reserve and Grand Rosé are aged almost six years.”
With their wines consistently praised for both their high quality and reasonable prices, Gruet has gone from issuing 2,000 cases annually to its current output of 125,000 cases. They have plans to increase those numbers to 250,000 cases in the next five years and to break into markets in other countries as well. To that end, in 2014 they partnered with Precept Wine, a Seattle-based wine company that provides sales, marketing, and public relations support along with a compatible vision for developing the brand. “They’re also a family-owned company, like us, so it’s a great partnership,” says Sofian.
This expansion comes at a good time, as sparkling wines are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Once limited to special occasions, they’re now finding their way onto wine lists everywhere, not just by the bottle but by the glass as well.
“The culture is definitely changing,” observes Nathalie. “When we first came here, there was a lack of knowledge generally about sparkling wine—when to drink it, even how to pop the cork. In France, from the time I was 12, I was given wine mixed with a little water at meals. There were no sodas, so we drank either wine with water or a little Champagne. It’s a cultural thing. But over time people here have become more comfortable with it, and now when I go to Super Bowl parties, they serve wine along with the beer.” Of course, Nathalie still brings the bubbly, which is no longer considered quite so exotic.
It’s been an education process, agrees Sofian. “People are starting to see that it’s okay to have a glass of sparkling wine with lunch or dinner, not just at weddings. It’s a result of having our wines on restaurants’ wine lists, exposing people to it. We’ve made a big effort in the last couple of years, going around the country to show people that we have a sparkling wine to go with oysters, with steak, with dessert. But regardless of whether it ever becomes an everyday drink, it will always be the go-to choice for celebrations and special occasions. The idea of bubbles is festive and fun. You pop the cork and the wine spills out, something that doesn’t happen with still wine. There’s a sophistication associated with it, too—the fantasy, the beautiful glasses. There will always be a kind of elegance to it.”
After celebrating the 25th anniversary of its first release last year, the family is looking to the future with new projects, including plans for a downtown tasting room in Santa Fe and an exciting new partnership with Santa Ana Pueblo, which has begun to grow grapes.
“We’re pleased to work with Native Americans, as they have a strong spiritual connection to the land, which is essential for winemaking,” says Sofian. “The Pueblo started their first plantings in April 2014, and we’ve arranged to buy them all. We won’t really know how the plantings will do until the fourth year, but they have 190 acres ready to go if this works out. It’s a great collaboration because they have the land and access to agricultural grants, and they need jobs for their people. We’re still working on a study of issues like cost per acre, access to water, job creation, and return on investment.”
Now American citizens and long since assimilated into the New Mexico lifestyle, Nathalie and Laurent look back fondly on those early, difficult years. “It was great to be a foreigner in a country built by foreigners,” says Laurent of the initial experience.
Adds Nathalie, “I love going back to France to visit family, but this is home now. We love our lives here.”
From the Spring 2015 issue
