Podcast Ep. 106: Kokomo Winery Owner Erik Miller on His Entrepreneurship Journey and How He Honors His Boilermaker Roots in Sonoma County

Kate Young:

Hi. I’m Kate Young and you’re listening to This is Purdue, the official podcast for Purdue University. As a Purdue alum and Indiana native, I know firsthand about the family of students and professors who are in it together, persistently pursuing and relentlessly rethinking. Who are the next game changers, difference makers, ceiling breakers, innovators? Who are these Boilermakers? Join me as we feature students, faculty and alumni taking small steps toward their giant leaps and inspiring others to do the same.

Erik Miller:

You have so many resources there at Purdue from the different departments and now even the ability to reach out to venture capitalists to fund some of this stuff has been so exciting and it’s just so cool to see some of the innovations coming out of Purdue. It is really a university to take us into the next century, and I’m very proud to see how we continue to be a leader in technology and some of our students and the things that they’re doing coming out of Purdue leading the country.

Kate Young:

In this episode of This is Purdue, we’re talking to Erik Miller, owner and winemaker of Kokomo Winery and Breaking Bread Winery. Erik shares his journey working his way up from a wine harvest intern to concepting and later founding his own winery in Healdsburg, California in the heart of Sonoma County. Erik’s entrepreneurial spirit has helped make Kokomo Winery one of the top wineries in California. He dives into the story behind the name, which highlights his appreciation for his Indiana roots and instills a warm Midwestern atmosphere inside the winery.

In this episode, you’ll also learn more about the wine making process itself as Erik delves into his latest entrepreneurial endeavor, Breaking Bread. A line of natural wines that are best enjoyed with a meal. Erik recently returned to campus for the 2023 Purdue Entrepreneurial Alumni Reunion, which celebrated the legacy of Boilermaker entrepreneurs. You’ll hear how his experiences at Purdue equipped him to exhibit the entrepreneurial mindset that the university is working to cultivate through the new Purdue Innovates initiative. I am so glad you joined us for this story featuring a Boilermaker who used his persistence and innovation to turn his passion for wine making into his own successful business more than 2,000 miles away from his hometown roots. Here’s my conversation with Erik.

Erik, thank you so much for joining us on This is Purdue. I know you’re an Indiana native and we’ll get into that, but let’s kick off with your Purdue journey. When is the first time you heard about Purdue? What’s your first memory when it comes to Purdue?

Erik Miller:

Well, thank you for having me, Kate. My first memory of Purdue, my grandfather was a class of ’50 graduate of Purdue, so at a very young age I remember watching Purdue basketball. I guess one of my biggest memories is grade school, when it would be the Purdue-IU game and the day before you had to either wear your Purdue gear or your IU gear, and then of course the following day was you were either very proud or everyone else in the class was telling you how you got beat and whatnot. But that rivalry is probably my first memory. But yeah, Troy Lewis, Todd Mitchell, those years back in the ’80s.

Kate Young:

So how did you ultimately decide that you wanted to go to Purdue? What drew you in?

Erik Miller:

Having grown up a Purdue fan and having family that went to Purdue, I think it’s something that I always thought I wanted to do. And then as it goes, and you probably know this as well, when you have a handful of friends that decide to go there as well, you’re like, “Oh, it looks like we’re all going to the same university and an extension of our senior year of high school.” So I had a good group of friends that were going to go as well. So I think I decided that pretty soon after graduating.

Kate Young:

I had the same. When I look back now, I’m like, isn’t it crazy that some high school friends put you on this trajectory to your future life just because a couple of your friends are going to Purdue? It’s crazy.

Erik Miller:

At least I didn’t say a girlfriend or a boyfriend or something like that.

Kate Young:

True.

Erik Miller:

Because the one where you’re like, oh, you followed a high school love. But yeah, no. Your friends were everything. And then those guys are still my buddies and I still go to the Boilermaker Ball with that group of friends every year and so on. But of course I did meet a new group of friends at college as well.

Kate Young:

That’s bound to happen. So what was it like first stepping on to Purdue’s campus?

Erik Miller:

It was intimidating. I’ll never forget that. When you first step onto Purdue campus and you’re trying to … At that time I didn’t have the app or a map in that way, so I had my paper map out trying to decide where I was going to go and I hope I get to my class on time and this place seemed huge. And I can’t imagine today, right? It’s twice as big with twice as many buildings, but I was very intimidated to say the least.

Kate Young:

Erik shares some of his favorite memories during his time at Purdue, including reminiscing on a class he had with one of Purdue’s most famous athletes.

Erik Miller:

Everyone has those Harry’s memories.

Kate Young:

Of course.

Erik Miller:

Early and breakfast club and that kind of thing. And I had a lot of just … I guess the places I lived when I go back to Purdue, I always want to stop by each little place that I lived because I have so many different memories of those and playing frisbee golf at the ravines and stuff like that. But yeah, just really where I feel like I grew up and came out of being teenager to more of a young man and had your first nice dinners and sporting events and just meeting some of the players. I had classes with some of the players then, including Drew Brees, which was, looking back on it, pretty cool.

Kate Young:

Did you talk to him in class or was it a bigger class?

Erik Miller:

No. I think it was in the class of 50 lecture hall, I think. So it was a bigger class, but even still just going like, oh, there he is. I think I talked to some of them. Brian Cardinal or some of them, but not Drew Brees. I was a little intimidated.

Kate Young:

When I go back to campus now, I’ll see some of our basketball players and I’m like almost 34. I’m like, there’s Zach Edey.

Erik Miller:

Yeah. They stand out, right?

Kate Young:

They do. There’s some really tall ones on that team right now.

When it comes to Erik’s career path, he actually didn’t know what he wanted to major in, and wine making certainly wasn’t on his radar when he first got to Purdue. He ended up receiving his bachelor of science in organizational leadership from Purdue Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation. After graduating from Purdue, Erik admits he was still trying to figure out his path.

Erik Miller:

So I longed for exactly what I wanted to do, and then I moved to California directly after graduating Purdue. Just had this dream even while I was there that I’m going to move west and I’m going to at least give it a try. My first job I took, I was doing financial planning or selling insurance. I thought I would like it at the beginning and I got my license. When I knew that that wasn’t the path for me as well, it was discouraging. Like wow. I remember going, I just need to find something I really love to do. This isn’t even really about how much money I could possibly make because you’re thinking of that when you’re younger and stuff.

Kate Young:

Of course.

Erik Miller:

Important that I find something that I really like and can be satisfied with. I took a job as a harvest intern, which is the very bottom of the totem pole, working in a cellar over in Russian River Valley at this winery called Belvedere at the time. I remember working. I was probably two weeks into that job when the grapes started coming in and stuff. That was the aha moment for me that was like, wow, this is really cool working with agriculture and the artistic bits of turning these grapes into wine and stuff. And it really grabbed me and at that point that was the time where I was like, wow, I want to make wine making … And I didn’t think about having my own winery of course at the time, but it was more like, wow, I love to work with my hands. I love that we’re working with agriculture. I wish I would’ve known that you could have a major in wine making, which is called enology, and Purdue has now a focus you can get. Not a major in enology, but out of the food science department. And of course in the School of Agriculture they have a viticulture focus as well. So I just wasn’t turned onto that growing up in Indiana, but I found that here in California and decided that that was going to be the career I would go for.

Kate Young:

So coming from Kokomo, Indiana, did you just want to get as far away from home? Where did that dream to move to California come from?

Erik Miller:

I came out on a spring break one year and I actually on that trip came to Sonoma County. So I had a friend of mine that left college early and had an opportunity to take a job in Sonoma County and I fell in love. I saw the town of Santa Rosa. Was big enough where I knew I … Once again, going back to that first time at Purdue, you’re intimidated, you’re seeing all these big buildings and how am I going to get around? I was like, “Well, I could make it at Purdue and this is a little bit bigger of a town, but if I could make it there, I could find a job here.” And I knew also that at that time that I would be on even footing with someone who was born and raised in California because they would have to go to college and find a job and a house and that kind of thing. And I knew that the time to do it was right out of college because if not, I was going to start growing roots and that was the time to do it if I was going to take the jump.

Kate Young:

That’s exciting. I stayed in Indiana and sometimes I’m like, should I have gone to a bigger … I moved from Fort Wayne to Indy, so to me that’s bigger, but it’s still all in Indiana.

Erik Miller:

Which Indiana is great, having just come back from Indiana for the entrepreneurial weekend at Purdue, which was very awesome. Great weather and I love the people of Indiana, but this is home to me now. I’ve been in California for over 20 years and I do feel blessed to live here. It’s a very beautiful, magical place that happens to grow some of the best wine on the planet.

Kate Young:

So you’re interning at Belvedere. How did you branch off and think I can start creating my own wines and creating your own business as a winery?

Erik Miller:

So that didn’t come and things happen. And it was interesting doing a talk to entrepreneurs at the entrepreneurial weekend at Purdue. And there’s a couple terms, the entrepreneurial spirit and then grit and things an entrepreneur are typically known for to be able to kick businesses off the ground like that. Interesting enough, that first harvest I worked at Belvedere, my girlfriend from Purdue was the one that got me the job because she worked in the tasting room there. Well, as fate would have it, the winemaker that I was working under there, which was a great mentor to me in making wine, ended up swooping that girlfriend from me at the end of harvest. So my Purdue girlfriend that I moved out with that got me this job at this winery, we had broke up. And so let’s just say that I had an extra bit of grit and a bit of intensity after that had happened, so I couldn’t go back to work at that same winery.

I went towards the path of enrolling in UC Davis’ enology program, which I didn’t finish and didn’t complete, but I guess part of that was because I took a job that second vintage in a very small winery in Dry Creek Valley and we were in a barn. It was really cool because I was making 100 … Belvedere, a 100,000 case winery, big, lots of stainless steel tanks, very intimidating if you will, to going to a barn where we were making great wine in that barn, but we were doing it without all of the fancy equipment and making more of old school style wine. And while I was working there … And I think I might’ve got that job a little bit because someone felt sorry for me. No. The winemaker there, I remember telling him my sob story of how I’m out here single and my girlfriend left me for the last winemaker I worked for.

But anyway, in working there at about the end of harvest, we had the farmer approach the owner there, and it was just him and I working. It was such a cool experience because it was small production and it was intimately working right there with a winemaker. And the farmer says, “I have some cabernet that I didn’t sell this year. I want you guys to make it.” Grapes are very perishable, so you have a small amount of time to pick them. But if you don’t have the grapes sold, you can turn them into wine and then you have a longer period of time where you can sell bulk wine. And bulk wine is just wine that you’ve made that you can pitch on the bulk market and maybe another winery will take it or so on. I remember going home that evening and going like, wow, we’re going to be making this cabernet from the vineyard we’re working on, and then we’re going to be selling this off as the bulk wine.

A couple of days after I approached the farmer with my entrepreneurial spirit, if you will, and just said, “Hey, what’s going on with that cabernet? I might be interested in that. We’re making it.” That’s how it came about. It didn’t come about by me setting my sights on, I’m going to start something, let’s go. It wasn’t even an opportunity that came. It was more of a circumstance that came up that I saw the opportunity in and I decided, let’s go for this. And that was really interesting because after he decided, “Okay. I’ll sell you those barrels of wine.” It was like 20 barrels of Cabernet. And then I had this cabernet in a barrel. I was like, what am I going to call this thing? That was another interesting point and very, I guess pivotal time in the business.

Kate Young:

Clearly, Erik’s journey was filled with some pivotal moments in his life that helped him discover that entrepreneurial spirit. So now he has 20 barrels of wine, and as he just mentioned, Erik needed a name for this wine. And for this Boilermaker turned Californian, it came down to having a piece of his story in the wine’s name by paying homage to his hometown of Kokomo, Indiana.

Erik Miller:

Certainly, I’m born and raised in Kokomo, Indiana of course. But as you know, being from Indiana and Fort Wayne and stuff, Kokomo is a great town. A lot of history, a lot of manufacturing and stuff, but it’s not Carmel or Westfield or Fishers. So it’s not something that you would say, I’m going to put it on a wine bottle because it’s not the most high end town, if you will of Indiana. But also there was another big challenge which deserves a song, by The Beach Boys. And oh, what if people mistakenly think it’s named after The Beach Boys song? So I had a lot of that that I was thinking about at the time.

But really first where it came to be was I had a friend of mine from California who I’d met at the first winery I worked at, and he was over one evening and I’m talking about what am I going to call this thing? I need to have a story. I knew I need to have a story. There’s so many wine brands out there, it’s very important that you have a story so people remember your name and connect it with it. And so he said, “What about Kokomo?” Put that bug in my ear. But at that time I said, “No.” I says, “You don’t know my hometown. And then there’s that song.” But without another really option, I decided I think I’m just going to go with Kokomo. And boy, I’m glad I did. Not only is it my story, but really, I think it gives the winery a sense of well, unpretentiousness and Midwest flare. And it’s so cool because most of the time people think that they know exactly what I named the winery after. It’s that song by The Beach Boys. And they come in singing the song.

Kate Young:

Whereas Indiana people are like, “It’s after Kokomo, the town in Indiana.”

Erik Miller:

That was tough too because the first vintage of wine that I made, I sold it all in my home state there of Indiana where I had this great local story. Local boy goes out to California, makes the wine, names it after the hometown. But so many people were like, “Is this wine made in Kokomo?”

Kate Young:

Yes.

Erik Miller:

I’m like, “No, no, no. I’m in California doing it. I just named it after my hometown.” And I still have that happen from time to time where people think that the winery’s in Kokomo made with Indiana grapes and stuff, and that’s okay. But people out here, they want to sing the song coming in because it’s a fun song and that. But then they come in and what I’ve done is I’ve collected over the years, all this stuff from Kokomo, Indiana. I have a really cool welcome to Kokomo sign that the mayor sent me that’s the original street sign there. It says Hometown of Erik Miller. I have a manhole cover that we’ve turned into a table that says city sewer, city of Kokomo that’s really cool. And then just old artifacts that I find. Signs and stuff like that.

So if you sit down, you look around the winery, it’s pretty apparent what I named it after, but it maybe takes some time. Then of course my tree logo I think throws people and some people think about Kokomo. Is it Japanese? And I’m like, no, that’s just a coastal cypress tree. Really signifies my move west. Kokomo, the name of my hometown, and then the coastal Cypress tree growing on the coast here in California signifies that move.

Kate Young:

Okay. So clearly Erik is more than happy with the decision to name his winery after Kokomo, even if some people first think of The Beach Boys. Erik touches on a key design component of his winery and the importance behind a warm, welcoming Midwestern feel that he’s grateful to have grown up with firsthand.

Erik Miller:

When people come in to the winery, I always say, “Hey, if you know Kokomo, Indiana and you come in and I have all these crystal chandeliers and this is the super fancy winery, something’s not adding up, right? So I go more after barn wood and reclaimed stuff and more of a farm vibe that we have. But it’s very welcoming to people. And what we’ve found is that we get people even from other Big 10 schools or the Midwest that feel very comfortable and they’re like, “Oh, I’m from Minnesota.” It’s Big 10. All right.

Kate Young:

Erik discusses what has surprised him the most when it comes to being an entrepreneur?

Erik Miller:

Like any entrepreneur, when you go into business, I think you find that there’s a lot more than just making wine that you need to do. And of course in the alcohol sector of things, there’s a lot of regulations. So the federal government and the state government, it’s heavily regulated. Every gallon that you make needs to be tracked and so on. But at the same time, one of the coolest things is I was like, wow, the sky’s the limits on this thing. I can distribute my product not only to Indiana, but 49 other states. And then there’s the big world out there. We’re in six countries now. We have a slowed growth where we don’t want to make too much and go into too many countries in too many states right away. But that was a really cool thing that not only do we have a retail shop, which is our tasting room that’s open 362 days out of the year. Most holidays. We’re closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Easter I think are the three. And New Year’s Day.

But anyway, we have that that takes a lot of staff, but that’s our living room that we welcome you into, and that really shows a lot of our character and so on and the lifeblood of the company. I also have a production team where we turn all these grapes into wine, and that’s more like what my major is at Purdue, which is organizational leadership and supervision where we handle more for a manufacturing setting, but a lot of the production that we do not only in turning the grapes into wine but getting them into bottle and things like that.

Kate Young:

In 2018, Erik started another entrepreneurial venture. A new line of natural wines.

Erik Miller:

Breaking Bread was a project that I started in 2018. And that was just being out and about and seeing all of what was going on in the wine industry. We’re distributed in 30 states and just seeing this new trend in wine. And it happened to be dominated by the younger generation, which happened to dominate a lot of the wine buying, particularly sommeliers in high-end restaurants were some of these younger people. And they were going after these natural wines or very low intervention wines. It really got my attention. I think one of my distributors in Georgia handled a lot of those different wines and introduced me to some of that. And as a wine maker, you’re a craftsman. And I found that as a challenge because I was like, wow, this new style of wine where you’re making wines with really low input, you’re relying on it to be farmed perfectly and the balance to come from the vineyard because you’re not going to add anything.

One of the coolest things about wine is that it is so natural as a whole. When you think about other alcoholic beverages, whether it be beer or spirits, you have these grains and they’re not as natural because you have to boil them to create a mash and then you have to add a yeast to them and so on. Whereas these grapes, they have glucose fructose. So they have natural sugars, but then they have native yeast on the grape. So when we bring them in, we can actually allow that native yeast to slowly start building and the cells to start multiplying and start to eat away at the glucose fructose or the sugar that is naturally there in the grapes and it creates the wine with little to no input. But this style for Breaking Bread also grabbed at ancient techniques. So like sparkling wine before champagne, called Method Ancestrale before Méthode Champenoise. Or white wines, the way they were made hundreds of years ago in Europe where they were fermented on the skins. We call that orange wines or amber wines or skin fermented wines.

So it also had a lot of other techniques that would be cool to … Really, I want to understand wine making to the fullest and grape growing and making sure that my wine growing skills are up there and I really understand the vine. But also different ways to make wine and these different techniques to make wine. And so that was a really a cool thing for me. But at the same time, the brand and that category lends itself to a little bit more fun labels, more colorful labels, and at the same time it took Kokomo and grew Kokomo up for me in my head is to be more of my classic brand that is going to be my luxury brand that I got to make sure is only in the right accounts and not in the wrong accounts.

One of the things that’s funny when I go back home, I’ll have friends of mine from Kokomo there that are like, “Well, I’ve not seen your wine yet in the Kroger.” And that’s a great thing. You would think if you’ve made it big, you should be at the market. And I’m like, “Actually, we don’t want our wines there.” We want to selectively have our Kokomo wines at some of the better accounts where people are passionate about selling wine and not just something you’re going to grab off the market shelf because it’s a little more high end like that. Where Breaking Bread for me is one where it’s a little more fun. The wines aren’t made in a way that are going to be as classically aged. And of course the price point’s a little lower too. But it’s a very fun project for me and I just want it to be really different from Kokomo as well, which it is, but very much a restaurant wine too.

So we want to make sure that it’s at some of the best restaurants in the world. As the name implies, Breaking Bread, it’s certainly a food driven wine, and so I always like to talk about how our cuisine tastes was really evolved in the last 10 to 20 years where we’re not so steak and potato. I love a good steak and a cabernet, but a lot of farm to table lighter cuisine has become more popular, and these style of wines I think are light enough that they don’t overpower those very conscious ingredients and things like that, and they’re meant to really compliment it.

Kate Young:

I asked Erik to reflect back on his Purdue journey. How did his education at Purdue tee him up for success as an entrepreneur?

Erik Miller:

One of the things that I learned from Purdue that was really very important was the soft people skills and the networking and the relationships. You don’t realize that as much when it’s going on, but that’s a very important piece is the relationship piece in business, which sometimes allows doors to open and allows you to meet different people and things like that. Purdue I think gave me that well-rounded education. And it’s so nice to be able to, particularly out here in the west in California, when you can proudly say I’m a Purdue grad, and people go, “Oh my gosh. Congratulations.” It has a lot of esteem to it, so that’s very cool.

I have a pretty broad major at Purdue, which was in the School of Technology, but I had a couple other majors before that. But I think that it gave me a confidence. Purdue did. And then as far as a skillset, I can’t necessarily say I did anything about agricultural making wine necessarily at Purdue, but it’s a great university that has a lot of different selectives and different classes that you could take to give you a well-rounded … It helps you be able to learn, and I think that that was really important.

Kate Young:

Erik also reflects back on a specific challenge he’s had to overcome as an entrepreneur and how this challenge has made him even more proud of how far he’s come as a winemaker and business founder.

Erik Miller:

Really bringing the brand to the forefront here where we are known as one of the top wineries in Sonoma County. You hate to say that because you feel like you’re being pompous, but we’ve really gotten some really good press and when people say Kokomo, most people have heard of it around here locally. So it was one thing starting the brand and having a presence in Indiana and having that local story, which is really cool and getting that support. But I think that being in California, a household name if you will, and a winery that people think of as high quality. And most of our customers are in California by far and away, and that’s very flattering for me as well to come out not only from Indiana, but then have that story and that connection with Indiana. But to resonate so well with all the California folks because it is such a … Wine consumption per capita in California is larger than any other state and probably because we have a big wine country, but a lot of folks will have wine with their dinner here. And it’s getting more and more throughout all the states and the Midwest alike. But to have a footprint here in California I think is really substantial, and that was a very proud moment for me.

Kate Young:

And as for what Erik loves the most about being an entrepreneur.

Erik Miller:

The most answers that you’re going to get for that is, oh, the freedom. And it’s like freedom. Well, you eat, live, sleep, breathe your business. It’s your baby like that. So you don’t really ever get time away. Even on vacation you’re checking your emails and running your business as it is. But I do love the fact that I get to really steer the ship. So not taking on investors and not having people that are … The wine industry, it’s an art and I want to make sure that I am making the best possible wine that I can make and that is the main objective, and that I’m not driven by a board or by shareholders that are trying to get me to go in different directions because this is a long haul game. We want to make sure that for the long term that Kokomo remains to be one of the classic brands of California wine.

Kate Young:

As a proud Boilermaker, Erik and Kokomo Winery have partnered with the Purdue for Life Foundation and the Purdue Alumni Association to produce limited release Boilermaker Wines. Erik says this partnership was formed with the intention of creating delicious, boutique, small batch wines that highlight and celebrate what it means to be a Boilermaker. Each wine and each release features a unique label representing different Purdue building or landmark making every bottle a must have for your collection, wine cellar, kitchen table or gift to family and friends. Erik dives further into this partnership and discusses the popularity of these unique Boilermaker Wines.

When you think about your ties back to Purdue, and you’ve referenced a lot of the story of Indiana and where you came from, tell us a little bit about your collaboration with Purdue for Life and the wine that you come out with every year with them. How did that come about?

Erik Miller:

Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that. That was super flattering for me to be able to do that partnership with Purdue. I think Purdue’s just so great in that way. A, that we have a lot of alumni that really support other alumni, but also that we have the university that supports young entrepreneurs. And going back for that entrepreneurial weekend really made it apparent that that’s something that Purdue is really focusing on going forward. I think I got connected with a dean of the School of Technology, Dean Depew back in the day, but somehow led me into the Boilermaker ball. Which if you’ve not been to the Boilermaker Ball, great event. Every February. Like the last weekend or Saturday in February typically. And it’s just a black tie event, but we have fun. There’s themes with it and so on. And so Kokomo has been the only wine poured at that event since the very first one. The very first one, they had a local mead and then they decided to go with wine and they reached out to me. So it’s been, I want to say 18 years or something that we’ve been at the Boilermaker Ball proudly as the only wine served.

And I think that that got me to meet some of the other faculty and some of the other alumni folks and be connected with Purdue for life. I was reached out by someone at Purdue for Life, and they were like, “We saw that Notre Dame has their own wine thing and we wanted to reach out to see if that was a possibility to do a collaboration or something like that.” And I was just over the moon flattered about that to be able to do a collaboration with my alma mater. And so when we were talking about how we wanted to do it, there was already a little bit of a blueprint, if you will, with a beer. The black and gold, which is People’s Brewing and the Purdue Alumni Association that did this collaboration.

Well, that’s a big project. They sell that beer at Ross-Ade Stadium and probably Mackey Arena, great beer. But it’s a big project and I was just like, “Hey, teaming up with me is going to be more of a craft small production, limited availability.” Because we don’t make a ton of wine and we make high quality wine. That’s more of the focus. So in brainstorming about how best to do that, I wanted people to think of it as a collector. A collector’s item. Most of it’s given as gifts. So we have this thing in wine called verticals, and they’re really cool because you get to taste each vintage. So if you were to taste the 2018, 2019, 2020, all side by side by side from the same vineyard, same winery, it’s really cool because the different vintage shows. That can be a big difference. Every year we see a frost or temperature changes and so on.

But I was like, only wine collectors really get that and really buy into the vertical to it like that. But what I think if we change the label every vintage and showcase a different building or thing on campus in particular … We even have the train, I think on this new vintage. Every year the label changes to make it more collectible. And if you keep one of back of each of the vintages, you’ll have this really cool collection that shows different buildings on campus and symbols and so on. So that’s been really cool and we’ve had a lot of success with it. And sure enough, the thing sells out on the first day of release every year.

Kate Young:

I was just going to say, doesn’t it sell out right away?

Erik Miller:

It does. We’re talking about doing a club so we can make sure that people can get their allocations that they want, which would help us a little bit more with production numbers. But it’s flattering that it does. I’ll be honest with you., It’s a super cool thing and we’ve gotten some really good reviews back on the wines. It just has to be said that this isn’t just a spoof thing that is like, oh, this is cool and it’s got Purdue’s label on it. We’re really making high end, high quality wines that we’re trying to really over deliver, and that’s just part of what we do. But we also want to make sure that these Purdue alumni are proud when they put this on the table and they do open it. And we do suggest drink it and enjoy it. It’s been so cool to have that collaboration and it brings me back to Purdue. It’s just really flattering. We get people that come into the winery all the time like, “I want that Purdue wine.” And I’m like, “Oh, let’s get your name on the list for the next release.” But it’s really taken a life of its own.

Kate Young:

So what do you miss most about the Midwest out there in your sunny California?

Erik Miller:

Yeah. Well, and as I’m talking with you, Kate, one of the things I miss the most, and this is true, is the people. The people of the Midwest are so typically down to earth, kind. And I’m not saying anything against the people in California, but it’s a little quicker, a little faster pace. You’re in your own lane. Stay in your lane. Let me get where I’m going. It’s more people and so on. But gosh, it’s so nice to be back in the Midwest and in Indiana where people are waving and always wanting to talk to you. Whether it be a waiter or just a random person next to you, you strike up conversation easy and you can really form relationships easy in a really nice down to earth way. I think one of the coolest things that we have a stereotype for in Indiana, in the Midwest as a whole, not only being friendly but being hardworking, and that’s something that I think really has helped me along the way with this business.

Kate Young:

And speaking of work ethic, Erik shares why he’s proud to be a Boilermaker.

Erik Miller:

Gee, I tell you what, going back to Purdue for this last entrepreneurial weekend really gave me a different sense of pride and a different … Not only all the new buildings that have been built and the new labs. I got a tour with Ernie from the School of Technology, the new labs that they have at KNOY there that are just amazing. Some of the stuff that they’re doing and the technology there. But you know what Mitch Daniels did, and I was very proud to see that Mitch Daniels Avenue there going through campus. But hearing about some of the ways that he really changed the dynamic there to be focused on, hey, when you’re a young, very bright engineer or bright Purdue student, it’s not always about thinking about getting you ready for your job. It may in fact be let’s start a business. You could partner with one of your professors, and you have so many resources there at Purdue from the different departments, and now even the ability to reach out to venture capitalists to fund some of this stuff has been so exciting, and it’s just so cool to see some of the innovations coming out of Purdue and hearing these students at that entrepreneurial weekend pitch some of their businesses to these VC folks to get them to fund it really made me proud.

From the whitest of white paint, to stints for strokes, to just all this biotech stuff that’s really amazing that’s coming out of the university. But it is really a university to take us into the next century, and I’m very proud to see how we continue to be a leader in technology and some of our students, some of the things that they’re doing coming out of Purdue leading the country.

Kate Young:

Erik discusses what the Boilermaker spirit means to him, whether he’s cheering for our Purdue athletics teams more than 2,000 miles away in California or attending a game in person. What does that Boilermaker spirit mean to you?

Erik Miller:

Oh, I’m glad you asked. I’m glad you asked. So I happened to be back at that entrepreneurial weekend while we had a home football game against Minnesota. And so I was like, oh, great. I’m going to that. And at the same time I was like, I’m going to bring my kids. Shamefully, I have an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old son that had never been to Indiana. My mom’s moved out here, my dad’s moved out here. I don’t have a whole lot of family back in Indiana. I go back once a year, but younger kids, I hadn’t brought them back and I really wanted them to see it. So they’d never been to Kokomo, they’d never been to Purdue. So I brought them back with me and I was like, we’re all going to go to this football game, and that’s going to be … But it was. We got really good seats. And of course we had a high scoring, very energetic game against Minnesota where we did come out victorious.

But what I wasn’t expecting is that the Friday before that game that there was a basketball game. I have a good friend of mine, Jim Rayl, whose dad was a professional basketball player, played for the Pacers, but he was also the best basketball player to come out of Kokomo and his son, Jace Rayl, plays for the Boilermakers, plays on the team. So he plays for Purdue’s team. He’s a freshman this year. And he reached out and he says, “I have a couple tickets if you’d like to go.” Well, my youngest son, Odin, he is a huge basketball fan. My older son, Milo, he can care less about sports as much. Although he did have a great time at the football game. But I got to bring my younger son, my 8-year-old son to the basketball game there.

It was such just a invigorating environment. Mackey Arena these days is just so loud and so much excitement. To cap that all off my friend Jim Rayl was like, “Hey, do you think Odin would like to go down to the locker room after the game?” And I was like, “He would be completely over the moon.” So we ended up getting to go down, he’s got to see the practice court. We waited a bit. We got into the locker room, got his picture taken with a couple of the players there, got our ball signed. I made memories on this last trip back that’ll last a lifetime and I think I have a couple of huge young Purdue fans now. They knew about Purdue and how connected I am. Their mom graduated here at a UC school. UC Santa Cruz. But now our house is certainly Purdue strong. We got some Purdue gear for the kids when we were back. It was really cool.

Kate Young:

Finally, Erik shares his next giant leap with us along with his favorite wine recommendations.

Erik Miller:

I say my next giant leap probably is going to be more into the vineyard side of things. So we have, my wife and I, a 16 acre vineyard here in Dry Creek. I look for that to be the first and hopefully acquiring some more vineyard land. It’s so critical in what we do. The ingredients. And wine is such a product of place. It really takes up a sense of place, whether it be the soil type, the microclimate and that. And it’s important that we have a vertical integration. That we have that secure sourcing of fruit, and I love it to be in our control. Wine making is a lifelong career. We only get to make wine once a year, and it’s really one of those things that typically in the old world was handed down from your grandfather to your father to you. I’m still learning wine making and continue to learn wine making for the rest of my life, I have a feeling.

But the viticulture side and growing the vineyard is another aspect of wine growing and wine making that has really interested me a lot lately. I have my own little vineyard in front of my house that’s a really cool little half acre that’s gotten me really started farming ourselves. The 16 acre vineyard that we have is being farmed by my partner in the winery, Randy Peters, who’s a fourth generation farmer here in Dry Creek. So he’s certainly been my mentor in the vineyard. And there’s so much to learn and so many decisions that we make in the vineyard that affect the outcome of the wine. And I love that connection with the earth like that. I love that connection. It’s on one hand you have no control. I always say there is a woman that controls it all. You know who that is? That’s Mother Nature.

Kate Young:

Mother Nature.

Erik Miller:

Okay. That’s exactly right, Kate. That’s mother nature. And we saw the vintage 2022 versus the vintage 2023, complete opposite vintages as 2022 was very hot, a drought year, early, and then 2023 was a very cool vintage. We didn’t see triple digits at all. It was very late. It was over a month later than 2022. So I like that. I find that exciting. You don’t have that control. So for some people that’s something that they certainly don’t want to be involved with where they don’t have control of the decisions of their own business like that. Some years you get a big crop, some years you don’t get a big crop. Every year is different. And I love that. You need to adjust your wine making accordingly. Not only when you decide to pick the grapes if high heat’s coming, if rains are coming, but I love to be in tune with Mother Nature like that.

Kate Young:

It’s super interesting you went to Purdue, a heavy agriculture school and didn’t study that, but yet your job is all about that and you’re so interested in that.

Erik Miller:

Who would’ve thought that I had that down deep in my … I think a lot of us come from agriculture. I think 200 years ago a lot of our ancestors were performing some type of agriculture, chances are. But when I say I’m from Indiana, that’s the first thing people think here. “Oh, you grew up on a farm in Indiana?” And I’m like, “No, I did not grow up on a farm. I was inner city Kokomo.” And then they laugh. And I’m like, I’m actually serious. We lived in Kokomo and it was more in the city part. So I didn’t grow up with that. My grandparents, my parents weren’t farmers and they didn’t have that in my family. But coming out here, that’s one of the things I think that drew me into wine making. That first vintage at Belvedere when we brought the grapes in. I always knew you made wine out of grapes, but when I saw the grapes come in, there was something that clicked and it was like, oh my gosh. And we’re eating the berries and we’re tasting them and we’re doing sensory evaluation on how are the tannins of the skins and are we getting the right flavors?

And something as simple as the seed brown and lignified. Is it fully ripe in that way? That connection really connected with me. And so I know it is funny. And having gone back, I don’t know. You don’t want to change your course because it happened where I’m here now and I love where I’m at. I feel very fortunate. But at the same time, Purdue does have one of the best schools of agriculture and it’s something hopefully in the future I can work with Purdue more in the ag side as opposed to just the wine making.

I went back on this last trip, not only did I go to those games, but Dr. Butzke who teaches the wine appreciation class, he invited me back to do a guest lecture. I had done it before for him maybe 10, 12 years ago, so I hadn’t done it in a while. But he is such a gem to have at the university. He was at the University California Davis here and an enology professor, and he’s so sharp and such a good asset to have. But yeah, that was really cool to be able to get into the class of 50 and see it packed with 300 students. A bit intimidating.

Kate Young:

Yes.

Erik Miller:

Yeah. But I was able to just talk about my path of entrepreneurship and really a cool opportunity. But hopefully as I get more into viticulture, there’ll be opportunities like that from the School of Agriculture.

Kate Young:

Okay. I have to end with … We got to hear about your favorite wine and maybe if anyone happens to come upon Kokomo Winery, what do you recommend for them? Give us a little insight into your wines.

Erik Miller:

It’s always tough to play favorites. I used to have that answer that they’re all my children. I love them equally. And I really do. And I make a lot of different varietals. The thing about Kokomo that makes it so unique is I do 16, 17 different grape varietals. So it’s not a pinot house or a cab house in particular. I make a lot of different varietals and I have fun with that. It’s really cool. But my is here in Dry Creek Valley. The winery is in Dry Creek Valley. We’re sandwiched in between Russian River Valley and Alexander Valley. So Russian River Valley is where I get my Pinot Noir and my Chardonnay from. And Alexander Valley is where we get our Cabernet from. Here in Dry Creek, the home base, we’re famous for Zinfandel. We’re famous to grow the best and make the best Zinfandel in the world here.

That’s quickly become probably my favorite grape. If you were to look for a Kokomo wine, I would say look for our Dry Creek Zinfandel. It is a grape varietal that has been mis-marketed. We had this problem in the ’80s where we had this thing called white zin, and then we had people thinking that Zinfandel was pink. No, it’s not pink. It’s a deep red, unctuous fruit forward, great food, wine. But we did the Sweet Rose blush with it and marketed as white Zinfandel and that hurt the varietal. And then we made these very big jammy blockbusters Zinfandels for a while out of California and people thought, ah, they’re not food wines because they’re just too rich in alcohol and they’re overpowering the food. We’ve went back to more of a classic style that has really good acidity, that is a world-class wine and shows how Zinfandel is such a world-class varietal. And I make a lot of variations of that. Breaking Bread, I do a Zinfandel Sparkling called a Pet Nat. Stands for Pétillant Naturel which is the ancient style of making sparkling wine. I do a rose of Zinfandel. Still rose for Breaking Bread as well. But the classic would be the Kokomo Dry Creek Zin and that can be found at most fine wine shops around Indiana.

Kate Young:

Well, I cannot thank you enough for joining us. Is there anything else you want to share with our listeners?

Erik Miller:

The big thing I’d like to share with your listeners is we love to host Hoosiers. I mean Boilermakers. But folks from Indiana of all types at the winery. And I make sure that I tell our folks in the tasting group too, “Hey, if I get someone from Indiana and I’m there, please let me know that they’re in so I can just come by and say hello.” But we would love for it … When you come to this area, the San Francisco Bay Area … We’re an hour north of San Francisco to stop in the winery and get ahold of us before your trip, make a reservation, and we can give you recommendations of places that we love around the town of Healdsburg, which is the great world-class wine country town that we’re located in, of where to eat and where to stay for different folks and then other wineries to go to.

It’s a really cool industry and the fact that it’s not all competition, these wineries up and down Dry Creek Road behind me. A lot of them recommend us and we recommend them. You want to go to more than one winery when you’re here and different ones are different. There’s certainly the ones that have the crystal chandeliers with the beautiful gardens and ours is more rustic, but we’re sitting on a 120 acre vineyard that has some of the most breathtaking views in the world. So I would say come and visit us at Kokomo. We will show you our version of Hoosier hospitality out here in California and boiler up.

Kate Young:

I love it. Thank you so much, Erik.

Erik Miller:

Thank you, Kate. I appreciate it.

Kate Young:

You can check out several video clips of Erik’s interview by heading over to our podcast, YouTube page, youtube.com/@thisispurdue, and while you’re there, hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you’d like to learn more about the Purdue Innovates initiative, please visit purdueinnovates.org. And of course, be sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Purdue is hosted and written by me, Kate Young. Our podcast videography for this episode was led by Ted Schellenberger. Our social media marketing is led by Maria Welch. Our podcast distribution strategy is led by Theresa Walker and Carly Eastman. Our podcast design is led by Caitlin Freville. Our podcast team, project manager is Rain Gu. Our podcast YouTube promotion is managed by Megan Hoskins and Kierstin Bauman. Additional writing assistance is led by Sophie Ritz. And our This is Purdue intern is Caroline Keim.

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