One of the most exciting wine projects in California today happens to be an upstart garagiste with an obsession for redefining sparkling wine in America. Michael Cruse operates from a small industrial park in Petaluma just off the bustling Highway 101 corridor. After a brief career in molecular and cell biology laboratories, Cruse worked his first harvest in 2006. After learning about the meticulous, labor-intensive process of producing artisanal grower Champagne, he became convinced that if winemakers applied the same approach to sparkling wine in California, the results could be game-changing. Cruse now stands at the forefront of a burgeoning movement making incredibly beautiful sparkling single-vineyard wines from some of Sonoma's most acclaimed vineyard sites. As William Kelley writes in Decanter, "But by pioneering the artisanal methods and terroir-driven philosophy of the grower Champagne movement here in North America, it’s fair to say he’s enjoying an influence that’s being felt far beyond his modest facility in Petaluma."