From Window Magazine: 'Second Vintage'

Growing up in the Yakima Valley town of Wapato, Victor Cruz (’81, Industrial Technology) watched his father toil in the fields as a farmworker.

Little did Cruz realize that he would also go into the agricultural business – as a barrierbreaking and award-winning winemaker.

His childhood also has left him with a great deal of empathy.

“I see how hard people work to earn a penny,” Cruz says. “I see how important education is.”

Cruz did not set out at first to be a winemaker.

He met his future wife, Kim (Douglas) (’81, Elementary Education), in high school. After graduating, he went to Eastern Washington University, becoming the first in his family to attend college. After a year, he transferred to Western.

In 1981, with a degree in hand, he headed back over the Cascades to work for Westinghouse, overseeing large projects at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation north of Richland. He did this for 15 years, then worked as a consultant for an engineering firm for a few years.

But even as an engineer, Cruz’s other career plans were growing on the vine. His friend from middle school, Charlie Hoppes, was a rising winemaker in Washington’s burgeoning wine industry, and the two talked for years about starting a winery together. The talk became more serious in the mid-‘90s, while Hoppes was the red winemaker at one of the state’s top wineries, Chateau Ste. Michelle.

Read the rest of this story on the website for Window Magazine.