Owning The Coast
Owning The Coast is your weekly deep dive into the people, places, and possibilities that make Santa Cruz one of the most inspiring places to live. Hosted by real estate pro Brandi Jones, mortgage and market expert Ryan Buckholdt, and insurance specialist Jerry Seagraves, the show blends their unique expertise with candid conversations and dynamic guests. Each week, you’ll hear stories that go beyond property lines — from navigating the local housing market to discovering hidden trails, tasting the best bites in town, and meeting the entrepreneurs, artists, and community leaders shaping the coast. Whether you’re a long-time local, a newcomer, or dreaming about making Santa Cruz home, Owning The Coast offers the insights, inspiration, and insider knowledge you need to thrive in life and living by the sea.
Owning The Coast
Hannah Healy: Zero Down And Zero Additives
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Zero down up to $832,000 on an FHA loan gets your attention, but the real twist is where the conversation goes next. We start by talking mortgage rates, two loan programs we’re genuinely excited about, and a practical ADU financing option that lets homeowners tap equity for remodeling or building an accessory dwelling unit. We also tackle a very Santa Cruz reality: non-permitted additions and how lenders and appraisals can treat “workman-like” square footage when a buyer is trying to understand what a home is really worth.
Then the ADU story takes a hard turn into insurance. We get into what changed for ADU coverage, why some carriers no longer treat ADUs with kitchens as a simple add-on, and how quickly one policy can become two, or more, especially when the FAIR Plan enters the chat. If you’re building an ADU to rent, this segment is a must-listen because monthly costs can shift overnight.
After that, we’re joined by Hannah Healy, co-founder and co-owner of Apero Club, Santa Cruz’s natural wine bottle shop and bar. Hannah explains what natural wine actually means, why conventional wine often relies on additives and heavy sulfites (SO2), and why alcohol ingredient transparency is still weirdly absent. We talk pet nat sparkling wine, orange wine, and why natural wine can taste “funky” in the best way. Hannah also shares how motherhood reshaped her space into a place where people can actually hang out, kids included, and how her team sells wine through tasting, curiosity, and story.
If you like conversations about Santa Cruz real estate, ADUs, insurance, natural wine, low intervention winemaking, and what “healthier drinking” really means, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
Rates And Two Lending Programs
SPEAKER_08Welcome to the On the Coast Podcast.
unknownWelcome back to the OTC podcast.
SPEAKER_08This is Brandy Jones with K95, all right?
SPEAKER_07Ryan Buffell, cross-country mortgage. Jerry Seeger, this is Seagirt's Insurance.
SPEAKER_08Sweet. So, Ryan, what are you seeing in the interest rates these days?
SPEAKER_06Interest rates seem like they've creeped up a little bit because of that. Yeah, again. They're starting to calm down though with the whole hopefully we're gonna have something as far as the straight of Hormous and everything else opening up.
SPEAKER_05So I think Yeah, that's gonna happen every day.
SPEAKER_06I pray.
SPEAKER_08I know I feel like we've been talking about this for forever.
SPEAKER_06Exactly.
SPEAKER_05Oh, it's definitely gonna happen this time.
SPEAKER_06But there was two loan programs that came out that I'm super excited about. One is there's a new FHA loan that we have, up to 832,000, zero money down. So that will help a lot of people who are actually making really good money here that have not saved up for the down payment. Two questions.
SPEAKER_08Is that 832 just for Santa Cruz County?
SPEAKER_06No, 832 across the country.
SPEAKER_08Really? And then zero percent down. What's their inter uh what is the credit score they need?
SPEAKER_06600.
SPEAKER_08Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06That's a first time homebuyer. I think it's no, do not have to be a first-time homebuyer. Wow. I think it's game changer.
SPEAKER_08Really? Why? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Now is that scary kind of numbers like going back to some collapses we've had? Like people it does it put people into houses they shouldn't be in? Yeah. Does it put us into a spot where people are getting houses that shouldn't be in a house, or no?
SPEAKER_06No, it doesn't because they have the income to be able to afford the house. Tracking. Okay.
SPEAKER_05That was the difference between 2008 and back then.
SPEAKER_06They just stated how much they make, but now we actually verify how much they make.
SPEAKER_05I like 2008. 2008 was a yeah.
SPEAKER_07I swear I make a million dollars a year.
SPEAKER_01That was uh college. That's a pretty bleak moment in life.
SPEAKER_05I swear I make a million dollars a year. Good enough for me.
SPEAKER_06I swear.
SPEAKER_08Ryan, I feel like you had another product you wanted to talk about.
SPEAKER_06I did. One more. So we have a loan where you can pull cash out to build an ADU.
SPEAKER_08Oh wow.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Wait, so this is a like you buy a house as you're buying the house. They let you pull cash to do the ADU in the same transaction.
SPEAKER_06Either that or after the request grow, or if you've owned it for the last three years, you can actually pull the cash out up to 95% loan to value. Wow. So you only have to have 5% equity in order to put that into either remodeling the property or building an ADU. Oh, that's brilliant. It's huge.
SPEAKER_08What's the interest rate on that?
SPEAKER_06Normal interest rates, whatever Fannie Mae is currently at. So, you know, anywhere from today, six and a half to six point eight, somewhere in there.
SPEAKER_08Gotcha.
SPEAKER_06But pretty cool product. Wow. So I'm excited about those two things. Yeah, I have a question for you, Ryan.
SPEAKER_07I have a question for you, Jerry. Oh, I love it. I'm asking for counting on my figures, like a five money, two money, three. In in this county, we have a lot of homes that don't have uh, I guess, conforming structures, like they're non-permitted. Yeah. A lot of maybe garages people have built that are like under the radar. Yes. How does that go with loans like when say a prospective new buyer is looking at your property? How do they consider those structures that actually add value to the property? But you can't really appraise them because they're not like permitted.
SPEAKER_06So it's actually totally fine. It has to be built in a workman-like manner, it's called. So normal ceilings, normal doorways, that sort of thing. And as long as it's built in a workman-like manner, square footage, they count it in the square footage for appraising the property. Amazing. So you could have an 800 square foot legal
Non-Permitted Space And Appraisals
SPEAKER_06home that was built with permits, added 1600 square foot to it, they will use the full amount of square footage when appraising the property.
SPEAKER_05Gotcha. Well, Jerry.
SPEAKER_08No, it's my turn.
SPEAKER_05Come on. I'm going to forget my question. Well, I'm going to take advantage of all of Ryan's deals today.
SPEAKER_07Okay. Yes, I'm going to buy everything.
SPEAKER_05And then I have my sexy insurance question. So I'm going to take advantage of all of it. I'm going to do the ADU. I'm $800,000 down. I'm not giving anything, no verif, nothing. It's all mine. Is insurance the same on ADUs? This is a good question.
SPEAKER_07This is actually a hot button issue of this week. I know what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_05And this is on the fly. Is insurance on an ADU the same including the house, or is it different?
SPEAKER_07Dude, you nailed the issue of the week. Okay, so the new problem.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you don't need to answer the question. I'm I'm happy right now at this.
SPEAKER_07So this week, actually, end of last week, ADUs
ADU Coverage Gets Complicated
SPEAKER_07have become a problem in the insurance business. Yeah. They're a huge pain in the ass, right now. It's all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_05What happened last week? Brian, you proud of me.
SPEAKER_07I have no idea. And companies just decided that it was too advantageous for our clientele, I think. And that's what I I we've been skating along all this time, adding them as separate structures. And as of last week, we started getting bulletins from carriers saying, oh no, we can't use uh an ADU if it has a separate kitchen or cooking facility as a separate structure on a policy. All of a sudden we have to write a second policy. And it's very difficult for you know, when you're an insurance agent and I'm a pleaser, like all I'm trying to do is close these deals for Ryan, you know? And Brandy. And Brandy. And then you're you have to deliver this bad news. Like, hey, we need two policies, and if they need a fair plan, now it's four policies. It's terrible.
SPEAKER_05It's pretty holy Debbie Downer. You come in with nothing but good news for ADUs for everybody.
SPEAKER_07Now I will say, if it's not rented out, it can there there are some um you know avenues we can we can negotiate with that. But if you are planning to rent it out, we are in a bad spot.
SPEAKER_08Wow.
SPEAKER_05Interesting. Okay, Brandon, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_08Oh no, it's okay.
SPEAKER_07I'm way to bring some bad news into this day. I was having such a great day, Brian, and then you just ruined it.
SPEAKER_05Debbie freaking down her over there. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Hit the button.
SPEAKER_04I have that. I have that. Keep talking. I think I have it.
SPEAKER_00That's what you guys have me here for.
SPEAKER_05That's Jerry's button.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, dude.
SPEAKER_07Like I need to have some excitement.
SPEAKER_03Alright, let's see.
SPEAKER_08Alright, I'm moving on because now that we've taken the real estate moment.
SPEAKER_05Actually, the show's over.
Meet Aparo Club Natural Wine
SPEAKER_08So we were gonna have Hannah Healy on our podcast, but she's no, she's still here. And she is actually the co-founder and co-owner of Aparo Club in Santa Cruz's first dedicated natural wine bottle shop and bar. She and her husband, Aaron, opened the business in guess what, 2020, during the height of COVID, woohoo! Introducing a fresh approach to wine. And I actually remember going there, and I'll tell you, I remember exactly what you were saying to me. Not exactly, but the vibe. I knew it was special then. But anyway, they have a very special approach to winemaking, where making wine is like an I guess you would say a very go ahead and say it like holistic, organic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, you know, people come in and they look at me and they go, What's natural wine? Isn't wine natural inherently? And the answer is no, right? Conventional winemaking, as we understand it and as we know it, has a litany of process where there is a long list of additives and also things that are removed from the wine. In natural winemaking, there is zero additives from sugars, food colorings, added enzymes. I mean, at the very beginning of alcohol, right, you have yeast and sugar come together, they make sweet love, and you get alcohol from it. Love it, right? You get an 11-pound baby. That's it, just like insurance. Yes, similar to the ADU situation. We're making Jesus wine over here. And so, you know, there is uh, you know, you need to use in conventional winemaking, you need to use laboratory grown yeast. Laboratory grown yeast and, you know, enough sugar content in order to make these big bodied wines. They're, you know, these very layered things that are formulaic, right? And they sort of exist without artistry. And natural wine is the sort of antithesis of that. It's the pirate radio, if you guys remember that movie. Yeah, right. It's this feeling that's saying, well, I don't want to do it that way. Who told you that that's the right way to do it? You'll often hear within the wine world world the word flaw, right? The the wine is flawed, there's something wrong with it. And it's often referenced in natural wine. And in natural wine as a community, we go, who am I allowed to curse? Yes. Yes, we do. Who's the decided that this is a flaw? Who told us?
SPEAKER_05Well, we can't say that word.
SPEAKER_01Don't admit it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05All the words except that we meant shit only.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, so you know, this conversation comes up a lot. Natural wine is shockingly a like comically niche product. It does not exist. You think the people of California who are so health conscious and loving of organic foods and health consciousness, we don't think about this at all. Like, unfortunately, even a little bit. You know, you go to the grocery store and every single thing at the grocery store has a list of the ingredients that's on it. If it's a packaged product, it's you can read the orge the ingredients, you can read the organic, what label it's under, except for one thing alcohol. Alcohol has no ingredients list on it. You cannot turn to the back of a bottle of Captain Morgan and read what's inside of it. You can turn our snake. Yeah. You cannot read what's in a bottle of line. You cannot read what is in alcohol. And that's not an accident, right? That's a well-lobbied, well-funded, multi-billion dollar industry.
SPEAKER_05Nice job, Brian.
SPEAKER_08By the way, Brian makes high-depth vodka. Oh,
Additives, Sulfites, And Transparency
SPEAKER_08that's amazing. I love it.
SPEAKER_04They have an ingredients list. We do.
SPEAKER_01Just think about, you know, when you eventually when you finally sell to Anheuser Busch, they'll take and fuck that up.
unknownYou know.
SPEAKER_01It's uh, you know, it's the the corporate way, right? And so, you know, innately, because of that, it's an unscalable product, right? So natural wine is not a scalable product, meaning that you cannot make a lot of it. It innately has to be done by hand. There's very smaller, smaller amounts of people are touching it, there's less formula to it. Not necessarily less shelf life, yeah. But you you can think of it that way, right? So the biggest additive in now or in wine is SO2 or sulfites, sulfur dioxide, and that's the preservative, right? And we found out, you know, I don't know, about a hundred years ago that if you add a whole fuck ton of SO2 into wines, you can ship them around the world and they'll last for a long period of time. And we found a way to commod, like make it a commodity, a sellable, tradable commodity.
SPEAKER_05It's a fuck ton about four cups.
SPEAKER_01Uh give or take. It's different in Spanish than the metrics of that.
SPEAKER_08No, I mean I'm babbling on about every little corner. I can't. You're not babbling on because you're lit up and you can see there's a passion about it. And that's what I was saying when I met you. Now we play volleyball together. Oh, yeah. And now she has her first child.
SPEAKER_06And now speaking of swear words.
SPEAKER_08But back then, that was the same moment I just experienced. And she has wine up the wall, and you're on the west side. And since you've opened in 2020, you've won awards for like 2023 Nexties Best in Booze in the Year, featured in San Francisco Chronicles Guide to the Best Places to Eat and Drink in Santa Cruz. Are you from San Francisco?
SPEAKER_01Did you start there? We own another bar in SF, my husband and I do. So we sort of like split duties. Like he does everything for SF, and I do everything for Santa Cruz because you can't pay me enough money to go up there.
SPEAKER_05What's the bar up there?
SPEAKER_01It's called Ruby.
SPEAKER_05It's called Ruby Wine. Totally different concept or same concept?
SPEAKER_01No, exact same concept. Yeah. So my husband opened it by himself in 2014. 2012? 2012, maybe. Yeah, 2012. And uh when you got out of high school. Hey now. I had graduated college.
SPEAKER_05This podcast just got good.
SPEAKER_01I'll have you know we did meet at the bar. I was one of his groupies, so I locked that down. But uh he he opened it back then and and he had been doing this product that nobody had ever heard of, right? It wasn't really a concept that existed. And in reference to the conversation about organics, you'll see a lot. Well, there will be wines and grocery stores or like local stuff, and they say it's organic, right? What they're referring to is that the agriculture is organic. So that means that they didn't, and to get that, to get that little emblem on there, that means that they didn't spray Roundup in the ground for the past two years, and that was verified that they're doing things organically. That does not mean that they're not adding non-organic ingredients into the wine. So you can still get the certification for organics and still be adding a you know cocktail of ingredients into stuff. Wow.
SPEAKER_08I like I like how you said that. But um when you are choosing your wine, so your husband starts this, you fall in love with your husband, you're a groupie, you lock him down. Now you've got the Santa Cruz version of this. Yeah. Santa Cruz is the everybody here is a business owner. Totally. What vision did you see? And then who did you believe in to have all those wines in there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So, in regards to like the actual wines that are in that room, because of this is like such a niche product, uh, quite literally, you know, the sad part of the job is we travel a lot. We go and meet these winemakers, we spend time with them. You know, if you think about it, like you live in your small town in your village and you like make your product and you sell it to like, you know, the the two towns over and a couple people around. And then people come to visit you and they want to buy your wine, but they want to talk to you about it. But you know, if you made a hundred pieces of art and like a bunch of smarmy dudes from LA come up and they're like, we're gonna fucking make it so big for you, you'd be like, I don't know about that. It's if anything, it's sales, right? I spent a lot of my time making relationships with winemakers and I promise them to do the justice. So I can come back to Santa Cruz and I could be like, Look, I visited, I stayed with this family. You know, their kids come and visit me when they turn 18 and they like work in the shop for a summer and hang out in Santa Cruz. When you say go, this is around the world. It's around the world. We leave to Japan on the 26th. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So we're usually gone like two to three months out of the year spending time with winemakers because it's important at sales, and I love to be able to like share their story. It's also living your best life. But it's also that too. And credit card points are great for flex. Um but yeah, you know, it's um it's fun, it's it's storytelling. It's like sharing the world with people in a way. Every time I can hand someone a bottle of wine and I go, This wine literally tastes like you're sitting edgeside on the Mediterranean Sea with your fucking lover, and you just came out of the water and your sun spritz, and you're going to dinner in a couple hours, and you just have like a little bit of a sip of this, and it should just transport you there. Now you're getting into the vibes world.
SPEAKER_05That's a narrative. Yeah, that narrative shit. That that is, and I think that's almost like you know, it's got that like water for chocolate kind of vibe to it, like a little bit of like that the you can taste the love in the product. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Natural wines are often called living wines, right? Because you're not removing any of that native bacteria that you get in like kombucha and what have you. Your body can digest it really well. It feels different. I swear to you, it feels different. It's commonly talked about that like the hangover is less, the like the drunk feels special. It feels like it makes sense. It matches. Yeah, you yeah, I I'll drink wines and I go, I I can picture, I know the person
How Natural Wine Is Made
SPEAKER_01that made us, I can see his house, I can feel his energy in this wine. It's so much fun. It's such a fun thing to share. I should have tried this.
SPEAKER_06Is it a completely different process to make it, or is it the same process, different additives or additives?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so so making conventional wine, you could quite literally have like a perfect spreadsheet. When this happens, do this next, right? You can have a perfect formula printed out. I've I've worked in conventional, I worked in conventional wine before I went to natural wine. So I like learned the old school way to do it. You quite literally will go, the whoever the head winemaker is will go, when you reach this process, you're gonna do this next. And from this moment, you're gonna do this next. And now from this, you're gonna do this. And those things don't really change. You're measuring, it's very scientific. You're quite literally doing chemistry. You're measuring, you're weighing, you're checking, and you're following the timeline exactly as it is. Natural wine is sort of like, you know, like a super stoned middle-aged French guy being like, I don't know, I don't know if it's ready yet. I'll wake up tomorrow morning and then like wakes up and then is like, all right, fuck it, let's bottle it. You know, like it's it's a little artistic. It takes a lot more skill. There's a sort of like shaman y process.
SPEAKER_03And things I love that.
SPEAKER_01And things also go wrong, right? There's room for things to go wrong. With conventional wine, you you go to the store and you buy that bottle, and they are promising you it's gonna taste the same every single time. That's their promise to you. They go, My product's gonna taste the same, it's gonna look the same. But things in nature don't look and taste the same, right? If you go to the grocery store or the farmer's market and you get a container of strawberries, it tastes different every single time. Oranges. Or oranges or what have you. You know, you pick a bag and you go, This isn't okay. Oh man, I picked the best fucking each. I got the best one. Because that's nature, that's mother nature, you know? And oftentimes you'll you'll get these wines and you'll try them and you go, oh fuck, this one's I I gotta put this away in the shelf and let it sit there for a couple months and see what happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And because you're not adding preservatives and you're not killing the essence of the wine, it will change. So a month later, I'll go out and I'll open another bottle from that case and I'll go, oh my God.
SPEAKER_05It's there's some disruption and adversity in that process that you're talking about, which is like that's part of like living a life. Like the best part of your life is adversity, and some things you don't expect are getting lost in a city. And I think the as you talk about it, if if that can be in the process of making a wine, if you don't 100% know where it's gonna go every time, there's some beauty in that. There really is, and I think it it can come out. You're surprised maybe by it sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. You're at the mercy of Mother Nature in the most beautiful way. It's it's consumable art, right? You take this bottle home and you go, someone made this, right? And their kid drew the label, and it's like this stupid little flower drawing, and it's silly, and you look at it and you get it to open up and drink with your friends, and now not just the night that you had, but instead of just like being thoughtless about the thing you're consuming, it all of a sudden it's kind of fun.
SPEAKER_07Because of the sorry, no, no, no, you go the way that you guys do the natural wine, does that mean that sometimes your yield might not be as high because of the risk you take on the process?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah, totally all the time. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, yeah. There's there's many years of loss, like total years of just being like, no, this was a mistake. Yeah. I I made a birth year wine for my son Hank in 2024. My husband worked for Ryan Beauregard uh Beauregard Winery for a long time. And they planted a vineyard together in 2007. And so we used that vineyard to make my son's a birth year wine. Wow. Yeah, for 2024, and we called it Hanky Panky. My son's name is Hank. That's cool. And um, you know, I was like seven months pregnant stomping on the grapes. And the joke, yeah, it was it was a little too heavy, if you ask me.
SPEAKER_08But um but he stomped.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I sort of just sat in.
SPEAKER_05But the joke is sounds like good wine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, here's the problem. I'm about to tell you, it's not my favorite. I'm about to say hi, because then we were postpartum and I had this new baby, and I didn't I didn't think about going up there and making any winemaking choices. I totally forgot about it. And then I said to my husband and I go, Fuck, didn't we make a wine and check on that? And we go and check on it. And you know, it had sat in barrel for so long that it ended up being like really intensely oaky and like got really fully fuller bodied than we had expected it to be. And you know what? It's still fun and it's gonna rip when it's cold outside. But yeah, I just released it in the summertime and I have a question about that.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. So now when you're getting into wines and barreling, a lot of people or a lot of wineries are coating their barrels with chemicals. Yeah. How do you find the right barrels? Or how do you find the chemical-free barrels?
SPEAKER_01I mean, either I buy old French oak, or I mean, I'd prefer doing like beeswax or stainless steel if I can get, or like fuck, if I had the money for it, I'd do like the ceramic eggs, you know, so things are a little more porous and you can get more oxygen.
SPEAKER_06If you want to get into that side of it, is there a distinct difference between the natural wine and like do people say the flavor profile or the sharpness or whatever it is? Yes. What's usually the comment on that?
SPEAKER_01The most common word used for people that haven't drank natural wine than try for the first time is they refer to it as funky. So the sort of like more earthy.
SPEAKER_00How do I explain this? It is there's so many fun aspects.
SPEAKER_01No, I wouldn't. I honestly want to sit between them, I feel like.
SPEAKER_06It's because he left an open window of time. It was like it was a good favorite. I took a breath. It was perfectly nowadays.
SPEAKER_01To answer your question, yes, 100%. Oftentimes, people that are drinking natural wine will note it for its flavor being like so much juicier and so much fuller and so much like non wine tasting. When you think of like going to a taste, I wish I should have brought a bottle. You guys have to do it.
SPEAKER_07That's all right. We'll come back to the case.
SPEAKER_01When you think of going to A tasting, you know, when you think about, you know, you go to a formal tasting and they sit you down and they put three glasses of different white wines in front of you and they go, What does this one taste like? And you're like, Ugh, and they're like testing you, and you're like, This just tastes like wine. You're like, it doesn't taste like, yeah, it doesn't taste like graphite, like to me. It just tastes like wine. And natural wine, I can promise, you won't have that problem. Flavors are so much more robust. And SO2, as it's added, sulfur dioxide, the more that you add, it truly kills the, like it kills the energy. It kills the flavor profiles. It really like absolves them from their natural characteristics. I always relate back to when, you know, the joke about Chardonnay moms and they want like a big-bodied Chardonnay that is buttery. That's not an innate flavor profile of Chardonnay at all. That has nothing to do with the quick.
SPEAKER_08Is that the malactic acid they added to make it creamy like ice cream?
SPEAKER_01There are so many additives to make something butter. None of those things are representative of the flavor of Chardonnay at all. And so that's what I mean. You know, without any of the additives, yes, the flavor profiles
Motherhood Changes The Bar
SPEAKER_01are innately different, but you'll be shocked by their differences and how much more fun it is, in my opinion. You know?
SPEAKER_08Well, speaking of moms, yeah. How have you how has your flavor profile changed since you've been a mom?
SPEAKER_01Ooh. Less drugs. Okay, how about your clientele? More drugs. No. Um fair enough. Yeah. My clientele to shop has changed drastically, and it's so much fun to see. It's not something in, I don't know if you guys have kids or not. You don't really think about it until you have a kid, but like nowhere really wants you to hang out that much. Kids are loud, kids are messy and they're annoying, but they are people. You know, you're entitled to have a child-free life. You don't want to have children, that's okay. But you're not entitled, entitled to child-free spaces. However, since having a child, restaurants, places, they're not really that welcoming. And I quickly figured out that there is a lot of people in this town that are in their early mid-30s that have a couple of kids and they have money and they want somewhere to go.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there's no doubt.
SPEAKER_01And and they don't have anywhere to go. It's like a reprieve. Yeah, I it's I took out, I have a small, my space is small. I took out a little corner, I put in a little trunk filled with my son's toys and a bunch of toys and laid them on the thing. And it has massively changed my clientele. Anybody from the age of 28 to 45 that has kids is hanging out at my shop because their kids are happy and comfortable, and their parents can sit there and hang out and enjoy themselves and not feel like they're upsetting anybody. I'm the owner and I'm standing there with my son and they're all playing together, running around, and nobody has the sense of concern of being like, oh, oh, I have to chase them. I have to chase them. That's not fun for anybody. So it's been super enjoyable to be able to offer that product.
SPEAKER_05It's a natural pivot. I think it's a natural pivot to your existence, what the life you're living right now. I think, you know, if not, it's not doing justice to yourself or your son or any of that. Like it's your environment, right? Totally.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, you know, apparel club is is like mine. I don't have we don't have investors and we don't have partners. Like it's my husband takes care of Ruby in the city and I take care of apparel club. Like it's quite literally just my shop. Like if I, you know, I have to, it has to be my space, it has to feel like my house, or I'd probably lose my mind. And maybe go ahead, Brandon.
SPEAKER_08Well, Jerry's gonna ask this question.
SPEAKER_07Staffing? Yes. Yeah, do you have anybody that you work with?
SPEAKER_08Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_07So, I mean, how do you go about finding somebody who's good at talking to clientele on their level about wine? I mean, that's a very uh it requires a lot of finesse, I think, in that space.
SPEAKER_01Totally, 100%. I love like one of my favorite things about wine is that you never, ever get to stop learning. I have been in the wine industry for like 12 years now, and there is just a never-ending world to continue to grow and learn and discovery. There's so much discovery. And all of the people that I've ever hired share that same just like excitement and thirst, literally and figuratively. And, you know, there is a marriage between the joy of like drinking and enjoying the product that you're drinking. And it's so much fun for me to see young people who are not just trying to get drunk for the sake of just getting blackout drunk as fast as they can, but they're coming and they're going, This is really good. Wait, I like this. And it's so fun to geek out. And because of natural wines, like, you know, this sort of like silo that it's in, there are these sort of unicorns. You get to chase these certain wines that only come out every once in a while, and you get to go and find them. And just because they're they're like special doesn't mean they're more expensive. That's the other fun part. It's just like this chaseable, fun, enjoyable product. And so my staff are all I require of them is to like have a thirst in excitement. And I am more than happy to hold your hand and go, let's go learn together. It's so much fun. We never have to stop learning. It's so much fun to look up on a map and go, and this is where we're going, and this is what we're doing, and this is why it's gonna taste good. And I try to take them on field trips and try and show them what the back end looks like. But the moment the you know, with sales, what is it? You have to believe in it in order to sell it. 100%. But so I I go to my staff and I go, All right, welcome to work. These are the new wines we got in. Taste every one of them. And then the moment they try one and they go, Oh my god, I love this one, I can turn around and leave my shop with a full heart because I know they're gonna go to the next person. Oh my God, I loved this wine. I want you to try this wine because it's so good. And that doesn't fail.
SPEAKER_07I did the same thing. I I had in the peak of COVID, I had a craft beer tap room up in South Lake. Okay. And I used the same approach. I was like, you know, I'm getting all this crazy difficult stuff at the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And I would just give it to my staff to try and be like, tell me what you like and don't like and why. And I saw a huge uptick in sales because they would just like take time to understand what they were drinking and like they thought about it. And it was something that they could talk to a customer about, and it resonated every single time. Like it wasn't just like, oh, we have these beers, this one's hazy, this one's uh West Coast, you know.
SPEAKER_08That reminds me like of yours. The high-depth vodka, and has you have the high-depth tequilas, you have the bourbons, like and I know that you're a partner in this, but this was your baby and your idea, and you brought these guys in, JD. And what what are you guys doing on that front? Of like, how are you hiring people, or how are you selling
Training Staff To Sell Flavor
SPEAKER_08it out, or is it a different process?
SPEAKER_06So what we did was we did a bunch of taste tests. Like we had formula one through 35 of all different vodkas. We took them over to Chuck's place over at one Broadway over in Los Gatos, and he basically tasted it as taste-tested everybody. And basically it came down to number seven. And it was watching number seven.
SPEAKER_01But everybody was blacked out. Yeah, exactly. Like we had the 30 shots.
SPEAKER_06We did it in two nights, not one.
SPEAKER_05Let's be honest, they didn't make it to eight.
SPEAKER_06And how much blur?
SPEAKER_01You can cut that. I had a quit.
SPEAKER_06I had a quit I had a more glad I didn't.
SPEAKER_05Let that let that one lie. The question I had is going circling back to an earlier part of the conversation is you know, loosely kind of understanding the world, when you opened it, worldwide pandemic, then supply chain, political kind of instability, economy, you know, paralyzation, and also I think significant decline in this industry year to year to year to year over a four-year period. But here you are, and you've got two. And I think I might kind of know the answer to this. How have you survived that? Like, you know, because it's been dramatic. It's been tough for the industry. So how have you guys kind of like circumvent have you circumvented it or have you felt it?
SPEAKER_01I mean, both. You both circumvent and feel it, right? There's no question. My husband and I have talked about this a bunch. Like, you know, 2018, 2019, when we were uh just Ruby and SF and we were, you know, balling, could do whatever we wanted, and sales were through the roof, and it was so easy. Of course, the pandemic was terrifying. And yeah, there's a there's a long, there's a long discussion about like the slow decline of wine sales over the past 20 years. It does not include natural wine. I was good. If you look at natural wine and natural wine sales, it is quite literally the opposite. People are very slowly learning about this product. Again, it it when I say it's niche, I don't even know if I'm like fully explaining. The fact that we opened it in Santa Cruz is like kind of hilarious. Like Los Angeles has three or four natural wine shops dedicated to zero zero natural wine, like in the entire county of Los Angeles. Wow. New York City has like a couple, Paris, France has a couple, like it is a very niche product. And the fact that we just San Francisco has us, it's just our spot. The fact that we decided to do it in Santa Cruz is like kind of funny, kind of like a stitch up, but we really did believe in it. You know, we believe in the product, and like I believe in this town, and like I believe in everybody's like ability to be excited about it legitimately, and that's what it came down to. I I was like, you know, I know that it's gonna be a struggle and I know it's gonna be a fight, and I know that every single customer that comes in the door, I'm gonna have to say the same spiel again and again. What is it? What is it? And that's still true. We just celebrated year six, and uh I'm still doing that. But I, as Brandy said, I will never stop feeling like passionate about this. It legitimately is the light of my life. It's more than just, you know, a product to me. It's like it has formed my friendships. It's like complete and total joy. And now, six years in, the the like the feeling that I get from people that came in a couple of years ago and now come to me and go, I physically cannot drink anything else. It is the only thing I care about. And that has happened again and again and again. And like I know people will be like, apparel globe is so hip, you know, it's for hipster. That's just not true. That's just not true at all. And there's this huge aspect about natural wine that I don't talk about a bunch, but I've just recently started to like feel like it's worth bringing up and is the how much healthier it is for you. And Santa Cruz is really connected to that and they're really connected to our health and how, you know, how we feel and how we look. And it's a huge aspect to the downsides of drinking, is how it makes people feel, what the next couple days are, what the fallout is of getting, you know, you know, going to Casties for a couple of night, you know, you wake up and you're down bath.
SPEAKER_08Or even just think, mom, the working moms, you know, it starts off a glass of wine a night. Then it's a bottle a night after two or three years. And now you're like, now they they have the the side effect of like, I feel like shit, but I need it, but I have anxiety, but I had a rough day. Like this is solving, I'm saying solving it. It's actually a more natural way for you don't not to have the backside that burns you out that you need it again, right?
SPEAKER_01Totally, yeah. Quite literally. Yeah. There's a lot easier process than digestion for your body. It's like it's it's so much lighter. The alcohol percentage is innately lower because you're not adding, you know, farmed yeast. So, you know, the wines tend to hit between like nine to twelve percent. They're light, they're fresh, they feel easy when you're drinking, almost to the point, you know. I had said when when like white cloth went crazy, you know, and I was like, why are people drinking this? It's like, this is just bad natural wine. I was like, people are gonna get sick drinking hard seltzers because it's gonna hurt their kidneys or something, which I believe it has. But what they want, what people really crave is they want a light, fresh beverage that's easy
Health Effects And Lower Alcohol
SPEAKER_01to drink.
SPEAKER_05I think it's genetics. Yeah. I think people that drink zema made babies that want white.
SPEAKER_01Not zema beans. I zema too.
SPEAKER_05But I really think I really think that's passed down like the bad disease, like because there's a big gap.
SPEAKER_01The average age listener of this podcast 72.
SPEAKER_05I kill with our I kill with our audience.
SPEAKER_08The moonshine club started early. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_06So the important question the buzz versus chemical wine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally. It feels different. It really does.
SPEAKER_05More balanced?
unknownBalanced?
SPEAKER_01It's like it's lighter. The the whole the whole experience is a little bit lighter. That's the best way that I can say it. And now, after, you know, I haven't drunk conventional wine in so long that, you know, if I do drink conventional wine, the immediate physical reaction I have to SO2 is I can taste it. You know, it's it's measured in parts per million. It's a you know, a liquid product that's added into the wine, right? And so a wine that has a lot of SO2, a lot of sulfites in it, you know, a Napa cab that they added a bunch will have, you know, 180 parts per million up to, you know, 240. And a low intervention wine will have between 10 to 70 parts per million low intervention. I can taste and feel the difference when SO2 is in a wine immediately. My fingers get swollen, my glands feel swollen, my cheeks feel hot, I might I have a tightness in my chest. It's almost immediate. And I don't have any allergy to it at all. That's just my body's physical response to it after not having it for so long. And I can promise you that everybody else would feel the same way. You often hear people say, Oh, I can't drink red wine anymore. It hurts my head. Or oh, you know, I can't drink this. Well, there's sulfites or this is sulfites, I can't drink that. And the answer's there. We just, it's not easily accessible. But it is in Santa Cruz.
SPEAKER_05Ryan, I is Ryan, I is is there again, I don't want to screw you and I'll edit this out, but with your product, do you kind of like have some partnerships? Are you guys moving towards like natural kind of organic spirits on some level? Is that is that an agenda or not really? How does that work?
SPEAKER_01Like booze is booze is, they just distill it, it's perfect.
SPEAKER_05It's just there's no there's there's no conversation there. Just a nice thing. They're not doing, yeah. So it's a whole different thing. Yeah. So I was just curious if that was like any kind of consideration.
SPEAKER_01Unless you're doing like an old age tequila and they're like adding vanilla extract and like caramel coloring, which does happen, you know, in like in people trying to make tequila look old and expensive. They add vanilla and they add a couple stuff. Do you like dude hide vaga is fucking delicious, by the way.
SPEAKER_06Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_01It's perfect. Boom. No, no, no issues. No issues. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Is there any pathway in all this conversation? Natural, natural. Is there is there a pathway to anything non-alcoholic or is that just not even a conversation?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have any wine in the shop too.
SPEAKER_05How's that come off?
SPEAKER_01It's sort of it's like we're still working on finding like the best version of that, but it does tend to be like a little medicinal, if you will, because it's usually fermented with like herbs and stuff to try and get it to a point where it tastes like something.
SPEAKER_07It's kind of a fun experiment. Exactly. I have an industry question. Okay. Obviously, wine is suffering right now. Yeah, big wine. Let's Napa Valley wine. Do you think that that's because of their operational like like overhead that they're, you know, they're seeing this decrease and it's gonna bring for more people like you who are buying their grapes and processing their wine? Or do you think that it's gonna be long-term just a big cycle that we go through and wine's just gonna have an uprising again? Or is there gonna be a big change in the industry?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, this conversation's been happening since I got into natural wine. First, I will say there is so little natural wine that's produced in the United States, like it's 0.0001%. You know, there's 15, 20 natural wine producers in California, and they're all negotiant projects, meaning that none of them own their own vineyards. Because to own a vineyard in California means you had to have a hundred million dollars and you wanted to lose 10. Right? You had a hundred million bucks and you were like, fuck, I need to lose ten million dollars really fast. Right. I'll start a winery. Right. You know, so most natural wine projects are you know these rinking dink little projects where they're making, you know, 60 to 200 cases of wine a year and it's side projects, and you know, it's fun. They're buying someone else's fruit that they're going up and visiting in Mendocino and they're making it. And so it's not that good. Sorry, I'm gonna be California natural wine has a long way to go.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you can't speak from the heart.
SPEAKER_01So most of it is imported that I work with. So most of it is Spain, France, Italy. I do do some stuff
Wine Industry Shift And New Vibes
SPEAKER_01from Central Europe, you know, some Slovenian wine, Czech Republic, some German stuff. Going to Japan, I'm doing an RD where we're importing wine from Japan.
SPEAKER_07Oh, that'll be cool.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna be super fun. But in regards to the industry as a whole, this is a super personal take. This is like not a you know, professional overview of it. The wine industry is so innately unwelcoming, it's like kind of a joke. Their entire, the entire world, you know. I'm a psalm, so I'm a I did the W set Psalm program, and my husband is a court of masters. Those are like the two schools that you can go into. And both are run by old white guys. That's that's the long and short of it. Is it's your guys' fault, by the way.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You you watch your mouth with my people.
SPEAKER_01Don't worry, they stopped listening when they heard 600 p score. They said the fours, not me. Anyway, it's um it, you know, it has been this sort of closeout project, this concept of wine as a commodity, the concept of of building a cellar that's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. That was the drive for a long time. It really took off in the 80s, and we saw these huge increases.
SPEAKER_07Like collectibles.
SPEAKER_01Like collectibles. They were this collectible product, and it was a commodity. They would show it off. It was this thing. And we saw a decrease of that. And then in regards to like as alcohol has changed and all of these new products have emerged as the, you know, the selters in this and that emerge, wine is just it's just not sold the same way. And the people that are drinking the new up-and-comers, the next age group, are looking for something different. They don't want to buy those things, they're not that interested in it, and nobody wants to spend $180 on a bottle of wine that's gonna be gone in 10 minutes with their friends.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01Unfortunately.
SPEAKER_05I think you're perfectly positioned for that, to stay on that demographic. That's like my kids, like you know, the 34, 30, 29. They're out for these experiences. They're are microdosing, they're taking some gummies here and there because they feel better, and they're they're doing smaller things, and they're terribly health conscious. There's a huge shift in like the overall perception of 20-something year olds, 30-something year olds. Two things intersect that I think are very positive for your businesses. That demographic is having kids, they're kind of getting out there and they're looking for healthier habits. And I think the whole there's a cultural shift in the 20 to 30 year olds as far as what a night out is. And I do think that you have a very good chance, because one, it's an experience, two, there's a narrative behind it, and three, it's not, it's it's a it's it would be in the category of a healthy habit. You know, if you're gonna be doing that one, it's it's the ingredients are pure.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And then the other aspect is it is the vibe, right? Conventional wine experiences are uncomfortable and stuffy. Going to a tasting room and wearing the big flop floppy fucking hat and the long floral dress and standing there and having someone pour you little tastes of things, and they're asking you what you think is in it, and you're feeling like you're getting a pop quiz, it's not that fun. It's not that enjoyable.
SPEAKER_05Again, you're shitting on my audience.
SPEAKER_01I, you know, my exact like my exact energy when we open a paralyclub is I like drinking wine, why can't you have a nice glass of wine at a dive bar? Why can't you just hang out with your friends? Why can't there be loud music? Why can't we dance and why can't we drink a little too much or have one glass and go home? Why can't it feel so comfortable and good and also be drinking something cool? Why does it have to be one or the other? Why do I have to have a good product in an uncomfortable space with a juxtaposition that I'll never understand? That's really good. That's what I did is I separated those two things. I want you to literally, quite literally, take your shoes off. That's really good. Just do whatever the fuck you want and also drink the coolest shit you can possibly get your hands on.
SPEAKER_08Where are they gonna find you? Holy elevator pitch. I know holy elevator pitch. Tell them now
Where To Find Aparo Club
SPEAKER_08tell them where to find you.
SPEAKER_01So I'm on the west side. I'm in the Swiss Street Courtyard. So we're right next to Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, just across the way from the old West End tap room that is currently being worked on and will soon be a restaurant and some stoke to add one things to the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_05Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Avery took it over from Manresa Bread, and they're opening up like French bistro in the front and then full bakery in the back. So Swissry Courtyard continues to boom. We have so much stuff over there. We're always hosting pop-ups and a bunch of cool stuff. It's just like a never-ending little hotspot.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's it's happening over there. There's no doubt about it.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's a total joy. Before we close out, your number one fan is here, and she has some dying questions for you. Are you ready for her top three questions? All right, come at me. I'm sweating.
SPEAKER_05Come at me, bro.
SPEAKER_08Go for
Favorite Red White Sparkling Picks
SPEAKER_08it. Oh. All right. I want to know. So this is Ryan's daughter, Karina. Oh.
SPEAKER_02Hi, Karina. Hi. I want to know what your favorite red, white, and sparkling you have in your store is.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's like individually what my favorite one is. Yes. Okay. I'm writing these down. Okay. I'll write them down for you, too.
SPEAKER_05That's a great question. Terry, do you hear that? I heard it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so first and foremost, I will say that the things on the shelves do change decently often because once again, things are, you know, not in large production, which is also fun because it means you're always going to get new things to come in. Right. This is not a cop out answer, but I just want the world to know. Every single thing in my shop has like every single thing in my shop is my favorite.
SPEAKER_05Cop out.
SPEAKER_01And it's my and it's like my promise to Santa Cruz. And it's like my promise to everybody that like I'm not selling a single bottle of wine that I don't think is so sick and so good. Like there's not a too much work into it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but too much.
SPEAKER_01There's just not a single one that I'm like, oh my God. However, I do have some stuff in the shop right now that I love so, so, so much. There is a wine from the south of France called Petite Nature.
SPEAKER_03Put it nerd.
SPEAKER_02Good thing he doesn't have the mic.
SPEAKER_05Nerd.
SPEAKER_02Of course I'm a nerd. I read all these podcast questions.
SPEAKER_01And it is my favorite grape ever. It's a varietal called Sinso. C-I-N-S-A-U-L-T. And honestly, anytime you're at a place and you ever ask for that, it's the it's a it's a red grape where the thin the skin of the grape itself is very, very thin. So when you go to process it and you're doing a punch down or a stomp down, whatever it is, it's so thin. It gives off very few methoxypyrazines, which is like what makes a wine like a full-bodied or like really high tick. So this red comes off, it's so floral and so bright, but it just tastes like summer just began. Do you know what I mean? It tastes like you just want my glass, right? You just go to the farmer's market and somebody offers you a fruit and you take a bite of the fruit and you go, Oh my god, and it's 72 degrees, and you have plans to go to the beef with your friends that day. That's what the wine tastes like. Wow, it's incredible. Okay. And then for sparkling wine, what do I have that I love right now?
SPEAKER_05I haven't drinking seven months. It's going to happen.
unknownYes, yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01We're all going to get a bottle. Okay. And then my favorite sparkling. So I do a lot of pet nats, which is short for petulant natural, which means that instead of doing a forced carbonation, the wine is bottled and capped when it's still going through fermentation. When it's fill out f finished malolactic, but it's finishing fermentation, which means it is naturally still bubbling. So they bottle it and then rack it at an angle like this and let all that energy come to the front. You do something called disgorging and you pop it for a second, let it spurt out all the extra sediment, and then they cap it again. So it's still this naturally sparkling wine, but the bubbles are much smaller than like a force carbonation from like a champagne or a prosecco. So the bubbles are smaller, it's a little bit easier to drink, like and it is so energetic. I have tons of them in my shop and always keep them in there. In coconut flavor, nonetheless.
SPEAKER_07It was classic. Classic.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, this is gonna be the PG13 rating on it. Okay, wait. What's my favorite one? Oh my god. Okay, so my favorite uh sparkling wine in the shop right now is called Frauenpower or Girl Power. And it is from a lovely lady named Alana Legamba, and she is in Western Germany in Rheinhausen, and she does these like big red mixes, and it's the prettiest color. It's like this magenta bottle, and it's really fabulous. I'll save you one. Oh, thank you. And then what am I best saying? White? And then white, yep. I mean, if I'm gonna go like full mom vibes, which I have to, and I can't help myself. We'll have to talk about orange wines too eventually. I was gonna ask about orange. Okay, all right. But we're gonna talk mom wines. I love a Shenon Blonde from Loire Valley. Orange wine.
SPEAKER_07I know there's an orange wine.
SPEAKER_01Orange wine is white wine where the skin is left on during fermentation. So it pulls the methoxy perisins from the skin and it gives it quite literally an orange color. It gives it a little more flavor. You'll often
Local Winemaker Favorite And Closing
SPEAKER_01notice people will be like, this tastes like it has actual juice in it. But it doesn't. It's just orange wine.
SPEAKER_08All right, we've got one more question. Round it out.
SPEAKER_02I gotta pick my favorite. Perfect. Okay, your favorite local winemaker.
SPEAKER_01Oh I'd have to say, there's so many. I have a lot of friends in the industry. But James Jelx of Flores wines. He's in Corlitos, and he's the only person that's like truly doing zero zero and isn't anything. There, however, that's not to talk any shade on anybody. Everyone's doing really cool stuff. Cottage Farm is is really good. But James Julx of Flores would be my personal favorite.
SPEAKER_08We forgot to ask Ryan's question. Oh. What's your favorite restaurant in town?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Can I say my house?
SPEAKER_06Oh best answer ever. Only when we can all come over. You guys are welcome to come over.
SPEAKER_01My husband is a really, really talented chef, and like every day of his life he cooks like a six-hour meal. The entire World Cup. Every single game, he cooked a themed meal of a fusion of the two teams.
SPEAKER_05Yes, a fusion.
SPEAKER_01My groceries, my grocery store bill for the month of the World Cup was astronomical.
SPEAKER_05Did you guys walk into the living room with holding children's hands and circle it?
SPEAKER_08Well, thank you, Hannah. We are so excited. I hope all the audience gets a chance to come hang out with you. And are are you online anymore? Instagram? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're on Instagram, the Apparel Club. I have a website. You don't want to go to it. There's nothing on it. But come on in. Come hang out with us. We're there every day.
SPEAKER_08Thank you so much. Cheers, fence. All right. I'm Brandy Jones with KW Thrive. I'm at 831-588-5145.
SPEAKER_06Ryan Buffolt, Cross Country Mortgage, 831-818-2339.
SPEAKER_07Jerry Seegertz with Seegers Insurance, 831-239-9425.
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