RANDALL GRAHM is a changed man, again. But this time he thinks he means it.
Those who have followed him on his 25-odd-year journey as winemaker, jester and all-around philosopher king of Bonny Doon Vineyard have gotten used to the periodic pivots that twist his vinous trajectory like one of Escher’s Moebius bands. But then, straight lines never really fit the Bonny Doon aesthetic.
Since its inception in 1983, Bonny Doon often seemed one step ahead of the rest of the California wine industry, yet incapable of prolonged focus. Mr. Grahm began with a fascination with pinot noir. He became a leading voice in California promoting Rhone grapes, and then, just as vigorously, touted Italian grapes, the obscurer the better. There was riesling, too, and delicious sweet wines. At its peak, in 2006, Bonny Doon sold some 450,000 cases of wine, more than 5 million bottles.
But, as anyone so philosophically inclined might wonder, what did it all mean? Mr. Grahm, 56, indeed asked himself that question, just a few years ago, and the answer was not satisfying.
“I took stock of my situation,” he said, as we sat down recently in the new tasting room of his winery, which, not surprisingly, occupies an old granola factory here in this free-spirited university town. “My wines were O.K., but was I really doing anything distinctive or special? The world doesn’t need these wines — I was writing and talking about terroir but I wasn’t doing what I was saying. I wanted to be congruent with myself.”
What followed was a paring back. Mr. Grahm sold off moneymaking labels like Big House and spun off Pacific Rim, under which he sold a lot of riesling. Gone were popular Bonny Doon wines like Old Telegram and, my personal favorite, Clos de Gilroy, a lively, fresh grenache that was as good on a hot summer’s day as it was at Thanksgiving. Production has dropped to 35,000 cases.
As Mr. Grahm saw it, these may have been profitable wines, but not original wines. All told, the lineup of 35 different wines has been reduced to around 10, still a fair number.
“I know, I know, but what can I do?” Mr. Grahm said, throwing up his hands. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether we make a few wines or a lot of wines. What matters is that we make wines of originality that have a reason for being.
“The question is, how do you create the conditions for originality?”
For Mr. Grahm, that means owning a vineyard, embracing biodynamic viticulture and farming without irrigation, as the best Old World vineyards are farmed. “Dry farming is absolutely crucial,” he said. “It’s more important than anything — biodynamics, schmiodynamics.”
The last requirement rules out Bonny Doon’s Ca’ del Solo vineyard outside Soledad in Monterey County, where it is so dry Mr. Grahm is obliged to irrigate. “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have planted a vineyard in Soledad, but I did,” he said.
Seeking land that could be dry-farmed and that was in driving distance of his base in Santa Cruz (It’s my ’hood, and these are my peeps!”) brought Mr. Grahm to some unusual sites for a new vineyard. He settled on 280 acres on a northeast-facing hillside outside San Juan Bautista, a mission town about 35 miles east of Santa Cruz.
It has not been a smooth process, but barring worldwide catastrophe, as Mr. Grahm put it, he is due to close on the parcel within a few weeks. He already has goats grazing the land, while a geomancer has helped ease his fear that the site will not have enough water.
“You could say it’s just a real estate deal, but it’s really been an existential struggle,” he said.
With his frizzy, graying hair tied back in a ponytail, his black-rimmed glasses perched slightly askew on his nose, one tip of his shirt collar lapping over the lapel of a rumpled jacket, Mr. Grahm looks the part of an aging hippie who found a way to prolong graduate school indefinitely, at someone else’s expense.
That’s always been part of his roguish appeal — the ability to entertain, to charm, to fascinate and ultimately to get by, with comic wine labels, cosmic puns, rococo satires and elaborately staged publicity stunts. He was the philosopher as ringmaster. He was also contradictory, or perhaps refreshingly honest, speaking reverentially of terroir, yet rarely finding terroir expressed in his own wines, even if they were usually pretty good. Why original wines? Why now?
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Those who have followed him on his 25-odd-year journey as winemaker, jester and all-around philosopher king of Bonny Doon Vineyard have gotten used to the periodic pivots that twist his vinous trajectory like one of Escher’s Moebius bands. But then, straight lines never really fit the Bonny Doon aesthetic.
Since its inception in 1983, Bonny Doon often seemed one step ahead of the rest of the California wine industry, yet incapable of prolonged focus. Mr. Grahm began with a fascination with pinot noir. He became a leading voice in California promoting Rhone grapes, and then, just as vigorously, touted Italian grapes, the obscurer the better. There was riesling, too, and delicious sweet wines. At its peak, in 2006, Bonny Doon sold some 450,000 cases of wine, more than 5 million bottles.
But, as anyone so philosophically inclined might wonder, what did it all mean? Mr. Grahm, 56, indeed asked himself that question, just a few years ago, and the answer was not satisfying.
“I took stock of my situation,” he said, as we sat down recently in the new tasting room of his winery, which, not surprisingly, occupies an old granola factory here in this free-spirited university town. “My wines were O.K., but was I really doing anything distinctive or special? The world doesn’t need these wines — I was writing and talking about terroir but I wasn’t doing what I was saying. I wanted to be congruent with myself.”
What followed was a paring back. Mr. Grahm sold off moneymaking labels like Big House and spun off Pacific Rim, under which he sold a lot of riesling. Gone were popular Bonny Doon wines like Old Telegram and, my personal favorite, Clos de Gilroy, a lively, fresh grenache that was as good on a hot summer’s day as it was at Thanksgiving. Production has dropped to 35,000 cases.
As Mr. Grahm saw it, these may have been profitable wines, but not original wines. All told, the lineup of 35 different wines has been reduced to around 10, still a fair number.
“I know, I know, but what can I do?” Mr. Grahm said, throwing up his hands. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether we make a few wines or a lot of wines. What matters is that we make wines of originality that have a reason for being.
“The question is, how do you create the conditions for originality?”
For Mr. Grahm, that means owning a vineyard, embracing biodynamic viticulture and farming without irrigation, as the best Old World vineyards are farmed. “Dry farming is absolutely crucial,” he said. “It’s more important than anything — biodynamics, schmiodynamics.”
The last requirement rules out Bonny Doon’s Ca’ del Solo vineyard outside Soledad in Monterey County, where it is so dry Mr. Grahm is obliged to irrigate. “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have planted a vineyard in Soledad, but I did,” he said.
Seeking land that could be dry-farmed and that was in driving distance of his base in Santa Cruz (It’s my ’hood, and these are my peeps!”) brought Mr. Grahm to some unusual sites for a new vineyard. He settled on 280 acres on a northeast-facing hillside outside San Juan Bautista, a mission town about 35 miles east of Santa Cruz.
It has not been a smooth process, but barring worldwide catastrophe, as Mr. Grahm put it, he is due to close on the parcel within a few weeks. He already has goats grazing the land, while a geomancer has helped ease his fear that the site will not have enough water.
“You could say it’s just a real estate deal, but it’s really been an existential struggle,” he said.
With his frizzy, graying hair tied back in a ponytail, his black-rimmed glasses perched slightly askew on his nose, one tip of his shirt collar lapping over the lapel of a rumpled jacket, Mr. Grahm looks the part of an aging hippie who found a way to prolong graduate school indefinitely, at someone else’s expense.
That’s always been part of his roguish appeal — the ability to entertain, to charm, to fascinate and ultimately to get by, with comic wine labels, cosmic puns, rococo satires and elaborately staged publicity stunts. He was the philosopher as ringmaster. He was also contradictory, or perhaps refreshingly honest, speaking reverentially of terroir, yet rarely finding terroir expressed in his own wines, even if they were usually pretty good. Why original wines? Why now?
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