Mad Uncle Randall
We visit Randall Grahm at the Bonny Doon Winery in Santa Cruz, where things had been going rather awry. By Kate
Woke up surprisingly fresh, but then our birthday celebrations were not exactly profoundly bacchanalian last night. For once, we did not have much of a drive to the Bonny Doon Winery, which is based in Santa Cruz, 10 minutes from our Motel. I have been to visit Randall Grahm here once before, and although changes are afoot with a tasting room and restaurant (although they can’t really call it that, so it is more tasting room with food) being built, the feeling remains the same.
Visiting Randall is like visiting your mad uncle who happens to have a trove of rare and wonderful treasures in his ramshackle house. Things in the winery are not exactly just so, quite the opposite, but this heightens the feeling of being on a great adventure as you are never quite sure of what he is going to come up with next. We were met by Alex, who has worked at Bonny Doon since the early 1990’s and minutes later, Randall emerged, in full working wine maker, must stained t-shirt garb. Grapes were a’ comin’ in and things were a goin’ wrong.
Their wonderful, very old vine mouvedre from Contra Costa County, ungrafted and dry farmed and spectacularly good, came in yesterday. Due to what Randall described as a ‘break down in communication’, the truck which was supposed to pick up the grapes was 3 hours late. It was so late, that the pickers got bored and went off to do another job. Re-assembling them meant even more delays so instead of the fruit being harvested in the cool of the morning, it ended up being picked in the intense heat of the afternoon. A very bad thing. In all of this mess, the person in charge of the pickers got so frustrated that at a particularly dramatic point, he threw his mobile phone into a river, necessitating frantic phone calls to his mother in an attempt to reach him.
When the fruit finally got to the winery, incredibly hot and bothered, Randall and his assistants were there until 1.30am trying to salvage the situation. They chilled down the must as soon as they could and then dosed it up with sulphur. As Randall explained this morning, in theory you want to be a completely non-interventionist wine maker but in practise, there are always occasions to be very thankful for the invention of machines like must chillers and last resorts like sulphur dioxide. It is slightly too soon to say, but it is looking like the Mouvedre really won’t be good enough to go into the Cigare Volant, Randall’s homage to Chateauneuf-Du-Pape, in the quantities it usually does this year. We shall have to see. It certainly will have been made very differently, with the aforementioned sulphur dioxide, plus lots of inoculated yeast. Wines here are mainly fermented using natural yeasts, but not this particular wine this year.
Were led through to the winery, past a long wall containing examples of various labels over the years. The perfect antidote to a stupidly heavily glass bottled bedeck in self aggrandising nonsense, his have fantastic artwork combined with witty and inventive names and are a joy to behold. Also, surely this is far more in the spirit of what wine and wine drinking is supposed to be about than pretentious, self important nonsense?
We moved into the winery and tasted first the must destined to be the 2008 Vin Gris, his ‘provencal’ rose and then the must of the unfortunate Mouvedre. The former was delicious, already having hints of something floral about it as it waited in its stainless steel tank for fermentation to really start up. We moved over to the open topped vats of Mouvedre and talking all the while, Randall plunged a hand clutching a glass straight in through the cap, emerging with half an arm which looked like it had recently been involved in some dreadful massacre. The juice was not nearly as bad as we had been warned it may be – the extra sulphur was not too obvious and there was still plenty of juicy berry fruit flavours. We sipped away at these while Randall explained that often winemaking seemed to be a domino effect. If one thing went wrong, a whole chain of bad events seemed to be set in motion. As the story unfolded, bits of grape pulp and skin flew from Randall’s red stained arm every time he gesticulated which did somewhat add to the sense of being in the presence of a dangerous, bloodthirsty maniac, albeit one who's only victims were bad, cynical winemakers and those who promote them, for what ever reason.
The mouvedre, when finally crushed and chilled, had been pumped into the brand new concrete tanks. He has recently been finding Stainless Steel just a bit too inert and dead – there is a hard, cold quality to the wines which is not what he is after. He also found that he preferred concrete to wood during very small trials he conducted in previous years. He therefore converted some old wooden tanks, lining them with concrete impregnated with quartz crystals. He had seen this done in France and the belief is that they will add something to the finished ferment, but he could not be sure of what that would be. He would wait and see.
That is absolutely in the spirit of Bonny Doon – he has taken risks and tried all sorts of things over the years which most wine makers would never have the guts to. It is more than just that though – many of his ideas simply would not occur to most. Tasting his carignan which is currently going through a carbonic maceration (a type of fermentation which occurs inside the actual grape berry, much used when the intention is to make a softer, more easily fruity red than a normal alcoholic fermentation would), he told us about how he had once experimented with this technique on Riesling. Now, I have never ever heard of anyone anywhere in the world trying this on whites. What did it taste like we asked? ‘Absolutely horrible’ said Randall, and both he and Alex roared with laughter as more bright red pulp sailed through the air ‘Much to phenolic, really bitter. We had to throw it all away’.
There is no hint of a residual flinch at the waste of an experimental wine and I can’t imagine that there ever would be. That seems to be part of his raison d’etre - a constant need to pry and poke and give something a go and in a world where for so many, wine is very big business , all about squeezing every last cent of profit out of the process, this approach is an absolute pleasure to witness.
Back to the cement. Once the ill fated mouvedre had been crushed, chilled and dosed up to the nines, it was pumped into the brand new, crystal studded concrete containers which immediately began leaking like sieves. Randall had apparently not been filling them with water once a month to prevent this, hence the new, dramatic turn of events. He explained that part of the challenge with converting to concrete here is that it is such a little used medium, he really had no-one to turn to in order to discuss maintenance with, the final outcome of this being vats leaking tired mouvedre juice all over the winery floor. Atter an already hellish day, everyone was then forced to stay and help to clean up the mess after the juice had been transferred out of these tanks and into stainless steel again.
They will fix the leaks and try again when the Syrah and Grenache come in but this is not ideal as firstly, these tend to ripen almost simultaneously and also, they were relying on the mouvedre, at least 2 weeks earlier than those, to give an indication of how things worked, before other varieties were given the concrete and crystal treatment.
We then wondered over to another part of the winery, to taste 2007 Syrah, from both new barrel and upright wooden tanks as he wanted to show the difference between these two. This was astounding. The wine from the upright was earthier and more elegant with great length and mid palate weight while the barrel sample was much more obvious (although that is not a criticism), with sweeter fruit and chunkier structure, although it faded much more towards the back of the palate. Perfect blending partners then and these will be joined together in what we hope will be a very happy union before bottling.
On to the new tasting room, still under construction, which looked hugely promising. Large old wooden tanks are being converted into ‘tasting booths’ which will seat 6- 7 people who will then be able to taste much more privately. He wanted to replicate the experience of visiting small producers in Europe where you don’t have 40 other people in the same space, loudly making their feelings known. We had experienced the tasting room phenomenon over the weekend at both Seghesio and Bella vineyards in Sonoma and it certainly was different. There were a lot of people and those not commenting loudly on their samples were shopping. Not for wine, which would be the logical assumption, but for polo shirts or stones made into frogs. Quite why anyone would feel a visit to a winery was incomplete without a souvenir happy camper t-shirt vaccum packed into a very small bag is rather beyond me, but it does seem to be the American way. Good luck to Randall and his tasting room though – knowing him, it will be a space with a difference and a great success.
We moved on from here to taste barrel samples of both 2007 Sangiovese – fermented with the skins of Moscato Giallo for added perfume, and 2007 Nebbiolo, both of which were delicious. Fresh and elegant, both with floral hints – classic rose petal in the Nebbiolo. Finally, upstairs for a proper tasting of finished wine and a chat about all the recent, very dramatic changes. Randall, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, explained.
He had, he said, been feeling very hypocritical about the state of his soul and the business. He knew what was important to him, namely wines that expressed a sense of terroir, a sense of place – wines that made the world more interesting and yet he had got to the point where he was not making wines that were specifically like this. At that stage, Bonny Doon was a rather big company, making 450,000 cases thanks to the highly successful Big House label, although his most treasured babies, the Cigare Volants et al had never mushroomed to an unmanageable size. Despite this success, he took the decision to sell the Big House brand and to make Pacific Rim into a separate company which he keeps a distant eye on, thereby concentrating all his efforts on making truly original wines from biodynamically grown grapes, with as little intervention as possible in the winery. Production is now at 35,000 cases and the move necessitated a massive restructuring of the company with half of the work force being dismissed and much of the money from the sales of the labels going towards severance packages.
Not all of the vineyards are biodynamic yet, but over the next few years, the hope is that they will all be certified and there is also a move towards planting more and more of their own instead of having to rely on bought in grapes – about 50% of these currently are. Randall does work very closely with all of this growers, but it is never quite the same and for all his zen-like, easy come, easy go attitude to leaking vats and sun baked fruit, he still obviously cares passionately about making great wine, something which will almost certainly become even easier when he controls everything aspect of the process.
2007 Albarino, Ca del Solo Vineyard, Monterey County
80% Albarino, 15% Loureiro and 5% Trexiadura
Intellectually, there is no reason for this vineyard to exist, explained Randall. Soledad is a ridiculous place, not remotely sustainable–you have to bring in to many inputs to keep it going. This includes irrigation and as the water is slightly saline, the soils are constantly being degraded, requiring much TLC to restore them.
This hails from the east side of the Salinas Valley, on a gentle slope where the soils are sandy with some clay and granitic subsoil. Mornings here are cool and foggy and a fresh sea breeze blows through almost constantly, apparently sending locals into a psychotic state, and keeping things extra dry – good for rot and mildew prevention but adding to the need for irrigation. Despite these challenges, this vineyard has biodynamic certification.
I had tasted this wine in London, but just after it had arrived and it was still very closed and unyielding. This is a very different beast -delicate and mineral, with citrus and smoke flavours and an astonishing (for California) 12.5% alc. There is a lovely, slightly leesy character in the mid palate, good length and fresh finish.
2007 Muscat, Ca del Solo Vineyard, Monterey County
So called as Moscato Giallo is not a recognized variety in California, but this is fact what this is. Also from Soledad, this had 7% Loureiro blended in as well, for the fresh acidity which it provides. There were some problems with this variety last year – it stopped ripening all together, possibly as a result of being overly parsimonious with the irrigation water. They are also doing pergola training with the Muscat in an attempt to get better yields – currently they are relatively tiny. Also, this shape provides protection against sunburn and seems to work better in such a windy spot, the air flowing gently over the top of the plant as opposed to constantly buffeting it side ways on.
Very lovely grapey, perfumed nose. This has 12 grams/litre residual sugar, which means that it is medium-dry, but this extra sugar is perfectly balanced on the palate. There are almost herbal aromas as well as fresh straw, delicate, grapey fruit and a distinct minerality along the edges with a great, fresh finish.
2006 Cigare Blanc
75 % Grenache Blanc and Roussane. Switched percentages of the varieties in 06 because of the amount of botrytis in the Roussane.
The fruit hails from the Beeswax vineyard in Greenfield, Monterey County, a vineyard where Randall persuaded the growers to install the drip irrigation system between the rows, encouraging the vine roots in 4 directions. This particular vineyard was planted for Bonny Doon by a grower they could ‘tolerate’, according to Randall.
The desire to own all their own vineyards one day seems to stem very much from huge frustration at working with those who don’t care or are really no good. Randall tells of a sofa that has been dumped in their beloved Mouvedre vineyard - handy for when pickers are waiting for trucks to arrive, one would imagine, but certainly not exactly a ‘natural’ addition. This particular vineyard will be fully biodynamic from this year.
Waxy, honeyed, white chocolate on the nose. Lovely rich, beeswaxy flavours on the palate, enlivened with a fresher, slightly herbal edge. Pear and richer white chocolate coming out towards the back with a deliciously spicy/mineral, honeyed finish.
2007 Vin Gris
27% Cinsault, 47% Grenache, 14% Syrah, Mouvedre, 7 % Grenache Blanc & 5% Roussane
This wine has gone from being an after thought – a by product of a much smarter wine, to something very intended. Some of it is still made from juice intended for finer older siblings, but most is fruit which is specially grown for this, so that harvesting can be done at appropriate levels of ripeness which means that adding acidity is not necessary. They do a lot of battonage with this (the stirring up of the remnants of dead yeast etc after fermentation), as they find that it smooths out astringency and gives body.
This wine is deliciously Provencal with sweet red berry fruit, fennel and thyme flavours. Wonderfully easy to drink.
2005 Sangiovese
Most ly Sangiovese with 7% of Nero D’Avola, Colorino and Cinsault
This fruit hails from San Benito county, one valley over from Salinas, close to Colera and is one of the cooler areas for Sangiovese in California. Randall is actually as interested in Italian as he is in Rhone varietals and if the Nebbiolo we tasted from barrel is an indication of where he is heading with these, then then future for Bonny Doon Italiano is looking good.
I asked him which he preferred and he answered with a shrug.
“Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?” Clearly, a man open to all options.
“What is true allegiance” he continued on the same theme “ Is it to a brand or to something higher and more noble like the terroir? Ultimately, you have to say, what is the best wine you can make, not what is the most commercial.” Amen to that, Brother Grahm.
This has extremely fresh, light fruit with a pleasingly refreshing rasp around the edges and a hint of earthiness. I like this wine but to be honest, I would like it more if it was a very every day drinking price. It is not stupidly expensive at all, but it above the everyday which for me, means it is my least favourite of the line up.
2005 Syrah Le Pousseur
From central coast, Bien Nacido vineyards where there is a lot of limestone in the soil and the temperature is definitely cool - great conditions for Syrah. Randall feels that while there has long been mystique surrounding the Bien Nacido vineyard, it is only now that it is really being farmed properly. Before, he describes the management of the vineyard as ‘horrible’. They also had problems with Pierces disease here a few years ago, but this is now more or less under control. He feels that there is a much better understanding of the problem now.
Basically, if a sharp-shooter population is detected, you nuke ‘em. Not terribly peace, love and harmony, but what are yhou going to do? He had believed that installing a net 50 feet high around the vineyards (a terribly Randall-esq solution) would work but the practical implications of that are not really feasible.
Apparently, the market for Syrah in America is pretty non-existant and Randall lays the blame for this squarely at the feet of a very vocal group of people who decided that Paso Robles Syrah was the way to go. This is blisteringly hot country and the thing about Syrah is that the stomates never close as they do with some varieties in intense heat, it just keeps going, the sugar getting higher and higher, the ph going crazy and the vine getting really stressed. The resulting juice needs a lot of manipulation and the resulting wines are dreadful.
These wannabe Rhone rangers are charging upwards of $50 a bottle for a wine from a brand new vineyard that is 15% abv and has the consistency of motor oil. No wonder there is no market.
On to happier things though –this wine is absolutely delicious! Very juicy, ripe fruit with fresher redcurrant underneath as well as characteristic Syrah white pepper spice, liquorices and hints of flowers. It has both great complexity and fabulous freshness – a fantastic example of what can be done with this variety outside of the ‘pot of jam’ stylistic arena.
2004 Cigare Volant
50% Grenache, 24% Mouvedre, 22% Syrah, 3% Carignan, 1% Cinsault
We finally get to the king of kings in the Dooniverse and on that subject, Randall has another riff. Screw cap as all of his wines, including this one, are now bottled under this closure.
Randall was an early convert and he feels that while he didn’t fully understand screw cap reduction at first he now really believes that this closure is great for red wines. What had been happening was that the wine was totally brilliant in bottle for 3 – 4 months and then it regressed and de-evolved, with really funky elements emerging and lots of reduction. Some times decanting cleaned it up, other times it was more persistent.
Unfortunately, this happened when they were trying to sell it and it was being reviewed, with depressing consequences, but Randall persevered. He began to notice that the more concentrated and minerally intense the wine was, the more intense the regression. He is currently developing analytical data to correlate this but has found that keeping wine longer in cask and giving it more air, plus bottling with much less sulphur helps enormously. He feels in a bottling under both cork and screw cap, at 10 years down the line, screw cap would definitely emerge as the winner. The wine might be much more coiled, closed and mineral under the latter at first, but long term, there is no competition.
Wine is a living organism , Randall explains and like all living organisms, it has Chi. The Chi in wine is its ability to tolerate oxygen and when young, it needs to use this as if not, it will be more susceptible to oxygen when older. However, once the tannins have softened and rounded somewhat, oxygen is no longer required, so you exclude it. In a perfect world, you need a gradual change.
This is full of vibrant red and black fruit with hints of floral and spice on the nose. On the palate there is more warm, ripe fruit flavours with liquorice, fresh rosemary, game and pepper, all bordered by an edge of stony minerality.
2005 Bien Nacido Vineyard
Although Bonny Doon has been making Syrah from this section of the Bien Nacido vineyard for some years now, this is the first time that they have produced a bottling. Before, the fruit was always all blended in with other wines. However given that X-Block, where this Syrah hails from, contains the oldest Syrah in Santa Maria and among the oldest in California (first planted in 1973), this is special stuff and definitely worth of its own label.
Bien Nacido is famously cool climate thanks to the fogs streaming up through the gently rolling hills. This, and the unique soils, consistently give fruit that is a world away from the jam and jelly flavours of much Californian Syrah. We fell utterly and irrevocably in love with this wine immediately, the intensity (and yet still remarkably elegant) fruit being completely delicious.
Intense black fruit with black spice, leather, liquorice and mineral. The wine is still in its infancy, but there is already more than enough to be getting on with; a fabulous balance of earth, fruit and animal.
So taken with this were we that we are going to have some shipped especially for us, so do keep an eye on the list as there won’t be much and it won’t last long.
2006 Le Vol des Anges
100% botrytised Roussanne Again, the fruit is from the Beeswax vineyard were they had lots of botrytis in 2007, picking 4 – 5 times and using sorting tables as well, so this is very close to 100% botrytised. Fermentation was in some stainless but also some acacia wood barrels.
Randall believes that this is the best dessert wine that they have ever made at Bonny Doon and may be the best, full stop. Quite an admission to make, considering what we have just tasted.
This had a lovely beeswaxy, balm-like quality in the mouth with honeyed quince and nectarine flavours as well as an edge of orange marmalade and of course, some more beeswax.
Delicious, but for my money, not a patch on the Bien Nacido Syrah.
Tasting over and Randall had to go. More grapes were immanent and he needed to be there, guiding them the nascent wines through their very first stages. Alex was going to take us for proper Mexican food which we were all incredibly excited by and before Randall left, he urged us all to have at least 3 tacos each. “Try everything!” he ordered.
Alex clambered aboard the automobile of shame (Amit’s car) and we piled in to the Chrysler. He took us on a scenic drive past the beach and pier which looked like a completely different world in the bright day light. There were still hints of tat, but the dark and oppressively dirty atmosphere had completely lifted and it seemed almost jolly, if a bit Blackpool-esq. We finally stopped in the car park behind a small and completely unprepossessing place on a busy road called Tacos Moreno. There did not seem to be anything terribly significant close to it in terms of office blocks etc but the line stretched out of the door and down the street. A good sign.
We finally got to the front and ordered tacos, quesadillas and beers. It all smelt really good. Apparently, the daughter of the owner is or was in the American ladies boxing team and she is often seen manning the tills. Not this lunch time though. The young lady behind the counter looked far too petit and delicate.
The food came quickly and was delicious. I am definitely not an expert on Mexican cuisine, this only being the second meal of this persuasion that I have ever eaten, but it tasted sensational – even my relatively watered down, meat-free, cheese free version. The mix of people in the place was impressive. Everything from Mexicans to men in suits to one stick thin, incredibly toned, archetypal Californian blonde who looked like she ate only undressed salad for lunch. Turns out she in fact eats two tacos with both meat and cheese but perhaps today was a special occasion.
We asked Alex about where we should go for dinner that night, mentioning that we had ended up on the Pier the night before. He winced at this and suggested one of two places in the far more salubrious streets of Santa Cruz, one of which was a wine bar called Soif. It sounded good, so after returning to the motel for more work, we met up at the earlier time of 6.30pm for a stroll into the centre.
Amit had apparently taken the decision that afternoon not to accompany us down to Santa Barbera the next day as he had to be back in San Francisco that evening and this would therefore mean driving for 8 – 9 hours in a single day, for only one wine visit. This was very sad news for our party but even more so for Wade. We said that we would see if we could fit him into our relatively small car but as all the luggage would have to come with us (the bar car had kindly been transporting Emily and Rebecca’s suitcases around California), it was not looking hopeful. This did however mean that we wanted to have a really good dinner with lovely wine as it would be our last night together.
Tonight we were definitely on the slick, as opposed to the mean, streets of Santa Cruz. Well dressed, happy looking people strolled, diners dined at tables in the open air and two bands played on the pavement, mere blocks from each other. One was a rather motley collection of either hippies or the homeless. It was difficult to say. The other was Mexican. Both were rather good.
We turned off onto a side street in search of Soif and came across yet another band. This one, inexplicably, had chosen to play under a dusty, unprepossessing tree in a parking lot where there was no audience and not much hope of one. When they struck up, this decision made more sense. Comprised of three people who were either bohemian to a slightly scary degree or who had over the course of their lives sampled the Chronic rather too enthusiastically (they could have been both, mind), there was a solid, matronly looking keyboard player dressed in floaty Indian type skirt and top, a man with long hair and beard, both greying, clutching a tambourine and a slightly younger woman playing a recorder. The keyboard player warbled along tunelessly to the discordant jumble they were producing. We paused momentarily to take it all in and they ignored us completely, which at least made it very easy to slope off again without too much fuss.
Soif was just down the road from there and it was everything that we had been searching for, really quite fruitlessly, since Fort Bragg. A large square room with a small glassed in section which served as a shop at the one end and a very high ceilinged room with dark walls on which hung 4 vines, complete with trailing root systems. Smaller tables of two and four ran around the outside of the room with larger, long tables down the middle of the room and it was on one of these that we were soon ensconced after we had descended on the shop, shrieking in delight. The man behind the counter was remarkably calm and collected, given that 6 excitable strangers had taken over and were rummaging around in a frenzy.
We emerged with several bottles which we had with absolutely delicious food – I had sugar snap pea salad, roast fingerling potatoes and tuna tartare. It was all fabulous and judging from the utter spotlessness of the plates that were finally returned to the kitchen, everyone else thought so to. Finally, we had had a meal which was what I always imagine all good Californian food to be (and what I have had previously, on trips when someone else was paying and budgets weren’t tight) – fresh and simple with the quality of the ingredients really being allowed to steal the show. We can all highly, highly recommend Soif to anyone visiting Santa Cruz and if you already live there, you almost certainly know all about it already
Feeling very content and relaxed, we left Soif after asking our charming waiter for directions to anywhere which would still be open, for a drink. He directed us to a bar in a hotel, a few streets away which apparently stayed open till the wee-est of hours and so we headed there.
I did not last long as although it was suitably dive-bar ish, with dark leather booths, dark walls and low lighting, almost everyone was smoking. So much for the idea of a California where you get hauled off to a maximum security prison if you so much as think about lighting up. Even after Amit had commandeered the juke box and had something other than soft rock blaring forth, it was all just too doused in a blue haze, so Jude and I left and walked back through the cool fog along utterly deserted streets to the motel.
Woke up surprisingly fresh, but then our birthday celebrations were not exactly profoundly bacchanalian last night. For once, we did not have much of a drive to the Bonny Doon Winery, which is based in Santa Cruz, 10 minutes from our Motel. I have been to visit Randall Grahm here once before, and although changes are afoot with a tasting room and restaurant (although they can’t really call it that, so it is more tasting room with food) being built, the feeling remains the same.
Visiting Randall is like visiting your mad uncle who happens to have a trove of rare and wonderful treasures in his ramshackle house. Things in the winery are not exactly just so, quite the opposite, but this heightens the feeling of being on a great adventure as you are never quite sure of what he is going to come up with next. We were met by Alex, who has worked at Bonny Doon since the early 1990’s and minutes later, Randall emerged, in full working wine maker, must stained t-shirt garb. Grapes were a’ comin’ in and things were a goin’ wrong.
Their wonderful, very old vine mouvedre from Contra Costa County, ungrafted and dry farmed and spectacularly good, came in yesterday. Due to what Randall described as a ‘break down in communication’, the truck which was supposed to pick up the grapes was 3 hours late. It was so late, that the pickers got bored and went off to do another job. Re-assembling them meant even more delays so instead of the fruit being harvested in the cool of the morning, it ended up being picked in the intense heat of the afternoon. A very bad thing. In all of this mess, the person in charge of the pickers got so frustrated that at a particularly dramatic point, he threw his mobile phone into a river, necessitating frantic phone calls to his mother in an attempt to reach him.
When the fruit finally got to the winery, incredibly hot and bothered, Randall and his assistants were there until 1.30am trying to salvage the situation. They chilled down the must as soon as they could and then dosed it up with sulphur. As Randall explained this morning, in theory you want to be a completely non-interventionist wine maker but in practise, there are always occasions to be very thankful for the invention of machines like must chillers and last resorts like sulphur dioxide. It is slightly too soon to say, but it is looking like the Mouvedre really won’t be good enough to go into the Cigare Volant, Randall’s homage to Chateauneuf-Du-Pape, in the quantities it usually does this year. We shall have to see. It certainly will have been made very differently, with the aforementioned sulphur dioxide, plus lots of inoculated yeast. Wines here are mainly fermented using natural yeasts, but not this particular wine this year.
Were led through to the winery, past a long wall containing examples of various labels over the years. The perfect antidote to a stupidly heavily glass bottled bedeck in self aggrandising nonsense, his have fantastic artwork combined with witty and inventive names and are a joy to behold. Also, surely this is far more in the spirit of what wine and wine drinking is supposed to be about than pretentious, self important nonsense?
We moved into the winery and tasted first the must destined to be the 2008 Vin Gris, his ‘provencal’ rose and then the must of the unfortunate Mouvedre. The former was delicious, already having hints of something floral about it as it waited in its stainless steel tank for fermentation to really start up. We moved over to the open topped vats of Mouvedre and talking all the while, Randall plunged a hand clutching a glass straight in through the cap, emerging with half an arm which looked like it had recently been involved in some dreadful massacre. The juice was not nearly as bad as we had been warned it may be – the extra sulphur was not too obvious and there was still plenty of juicy berry fruit flavours. We sipped away at these while Randall explained that often winemaking seemed to be a domino effect. If one thing went wrong, a whole chain of bad events seemed to be set in motion. As the story unfolded, bits of grape pulp and skin flew from Randall’s red stained arm every time he gesticulated which did somewhat add to the sense of being in the presence of a dangerous, bloodthirsty maniac, albeit one who's only victims were bad, cynical winemakers and those who promote them, for what ever reason.
The mouvedre, when finally crushed and chilled, had been pumped into the brand new concrete tanks. He has recently been finding Stainless Steel just a bit too inert and dead – there is a hard, cold quality to the wines which is not what he is after. He also found that he preferred concrete to wood during very small trials he conducted in previous years. He therefore converted some old wooden tanks, lining them with concrete impregnated with quartz crystals. He had seen this done in France and the belief is that they will add something to the finished ferment, but he could not be sure of what that would be. He would wait and see.
That is absolutely in the spirit of Bonny Doon – he has taken risks and tried all sorts of things over the years which most wine makers would never have the guts to. It is more than just that though – many of his ideas simply would not occur to most. Tasting his carignan which is currently going through a carbonic maceration (a type of fermentation which occurs inside the actual grape berry, much used when the intention is to make a softer, more easily fruity red than a normal alcoholic fermentation would), he told us about how he had once experimented with this technique on Riesling. Now, I have never ever heard of anyone anywhere in the world trying this on whites. What did it taste like we asked? ‘Absolutely horrible’ said Randall, and both he and Alex roared with laughter as more bright red pulp sailed through the air ‘Much to phenolic, really bitter. We had to throw it all away’.
There is no hint of a residual flinch at the waste of an experimental wine and I can’t imagine that there ever would be. That seems to be part of his raison d’etre - a constant need to pry and poke and give something a go and in a world where for so many, wine is very big business , all about squeezing every last cent of profit out of the process, this approach is an absolute pleasure to witness.
Back to the cement. Once the ill fated mouvedre had been crushed, chilled and dosed up to the nines, it was pumped into the brand new, crystal studded concrete containers which immediately began leaking like sieves. Randall had apparently not been filling them with water once a month to prevent this, hence the new, dramatic turn of events. He explained that part of the challenge with converting to concrete here is that it is such a little used medium, he really had no-one to turn to in order to discuss maintenance with, the final outcome of this being vats leaking tired mouvedre juice all over the winery floor. Atter an already hellish day, everyone was then forced to stay and help to clean up the mess after the juice had been transferred out of these tanks and into stainless steel again.
They will fix the leaks and try again when the Syrah and Grenache come in but this is not ideal as firstly, these tend to ripen almost simultaneously and also, they were relying on the mouvedre, at least 2 weeks earlier than those, to give an indication of how things worked, before other varieties were given the concrete and crystal treatment.
We then wondered over to another part of the winery, to taste 2007 Syrah, from both new barrel and upright wooden tanks as he wanted to show the difference between these two. This was astounding. The wine from the upright was earthier and more elegant with great length and mid palate weight while the barrel sample was much more obvious (although that is not a criticism), with sweeter fruit and chunkier structure, although it faded much more towards the back of the palate. Perfect blending partners then and these will be joined together in what we hope will be a very happy union before bottling.
On to the new tasting room, still under construction, which looked hugely promising. Large old wooden tanks are being converted into ‘tasting booths’ which will seat 6- 7 people who will then be able to taste much more privately. He wanted to replicate the experience of visiting small producers in Europe where you don’t have 40 other people in the same space, loudly making their feelings known. We had experienced the tasting room phenomenon over the weekend at both Seghesio and Bella vineyards in Sonoma and it certainly was different. There were a lot of people and those not commenting loudly on their samples were shopping. Not for wine, which would be the logical assumption, but for polo shirts or stones made into frogs. Quite why anyone would feel a visit to a winery was incomplete without a souvenir happy camper t-shirt vaccum packed into a very small bag is rather beyond me, but it does seem to be the American way. Good luck to Randall and his tasting room though – knowing him, it will be a space with a difference and a great success.
We moved on from here to taste barrel samples of both 2007 Sangiovese – fermented with the skins of Moscato Giallo for added perfume, and 2007 Nebbiolo, both of which were delicious. Fresh and elegant, both with floral hints – classic rose petal in the Nebbiolo. Finally, upstairs for a proper tasting of finished wine and a chat about all the recent, very dramatic changes. Randall, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, explained.
He had, he said, been feeling very hypocritical about the state of his soul and the business. He knew what was important to him, namely wines that expressed a sense of terroir, a sense of place – wines that made the world more interesting and yet he had got to the point where he was not making wines that were specifically like this. At that stage, Bonny Doon was a rather big company, making 450,000 cases thanks to the highly successful Big House label, although his most treasured babies, the Cigare Volants et al had never mushroomed to an unmanageable size. Despite this success, he took the decision to sell the Big House brand and to make Pacific Rim into a separate company which he keeps a distant eye on, thereby concentrating all his efforts on making truly original wines from biodynamically grown grapes, with as little intervention as possible in the winery. Production is now at 35,000 cases and the move necessitated a massive restructuring of the company with half of the work force being dismissed and much of the money from the sales of the labels going towards severance packages.
Not all of the vineyards are biodynamic yet, but over the next few years, the hope is that they will all be certified and there is also a move towards planting more and more of their own instead of having to rely on bought in grapes – about 50% of these currently are. Randall does work very closely with all of this growers, but it is never quite the same and for all his zen-like, easy come, easy go attitude to leaking vats and sun baked fruit, he still obviously cares passionately about making great wine, something which will almost certainly become even easier when he controls everything aspect of the process.
2007 Albarino, Ca del Solo Vineyard, Monterey County
80% Albarino, 15% Loureiro and 5% Trexiadura
Intellectually, there is no reason for this vineyard to exist, explained Randall. Soledad is a ridiculous place, not remotely sustainable–you have to bring in to many inputs to keep it going. This includes irrigation and as the water is slightly saline, the soils are constantly being degraded, requiring much TLC to restore them.
This hails from the east side of the Salinas Valley, on a gentle slope where the soils are sandy with some clay and granitic subsoil. Mornings here are cool and foggy and a fresh sea breeze blows through almost constantly, apparently sending locals into a psychotic state, and keeping things extra dry – good for rot and mildew prevention but adding to the need for irrigation. Despite these challenges, this vineyard has biodynamic certification.
I had tasted this wine in London, but just after it had arrived and it was still very closed and unyielding. This is a very different beast -delicate and mineral, with citrus and smoke flavours and an astonishing (for California) 12.5% alc. There is a lovely, slightly leesy character in the mid palate, good length and fresh finish.
2007 Muscat, Ca del Solo Vineyard, Monterey County
So called as Moscato Giallo is not a recognized variety in California, but this is fact what this is. Also from Soledad, this had 7% Loureiro blended in as well, for the fresh acidity which it provides. There were some problems with this variety last year – it stopped ripening all together, possibly as a result of being overly parsimonious with the irrigation water. They are also doing pergola training with the Muscat in an attempt to get better yields – currently they are relatively tiny. Also, this shape provides protection against sunburn and seems to work better in such a windy spot, the air flowing gently over the top of the plant as opposed to constantly buffeting it side ways on.
Very lovely grapey, perfumed nose. This has 12 grams/litre residual sugar, which means that it is medium-dry, but this extra sugar is perfectly balanced on the palate. There are almost herbal aromas as well as fresh straw, delicate, grapey fruit and a distinct minerality along the edges with a great, fresh finish.
2006 Cigare Blanc
75 % Grenache Blanc and Roussane. Switched percentages of the varieties in 06 because of the amount of botrytis in the Roussane.
The fruit hails from the Beeswax vineyard in Greenfield, Monterey County, a vineyard where Randall persuaded the growers to install the drip irrigation system between the rows, encouraging the vine roots in 4 directions. This particular vineyard was planted for Bonny Doon by a grower they could ‘tolerate’, according to Randall.
The desire to own all their own vineyards one day seems to stem very much from huge frustration at working with those who don’t care or are really no good. Randall tells of a sofa that has been dumped in their beloved Mouvedre vineyard - handy for when pickers are waiting for trucks to arrive, one would imagine, but certainly not exactly a ‘natural’ addition. This particular vineyard will be fully biodynamic from this year.
Waxy, honeyed, white chocolate on the nose. Lovely rich, beeswaxy flavours on the palate, enlivened with a fresher, slightly herbal edge. Pear and richer white chocolate coming out towards the back with a deliciously spicy/mineral, honeyed finish.
2007 Vin Gris
27% Cinsault, 47% Grenache, 14% Syrah, Mouvedre, 7 % Grenache Blanc & 5% Roussane
This wine has gone from being an after thought – a by product of a much smarter wine, to something very intended. Some of it is still made from juice intended for finer older siblings, but most is fruit which is specially grown for this, so that harvesting can be done at appropriate levels of ripeness which means that adding acidity is not necessary. They do a lot of battonage with this (the stirring up of the remnants of dead yeast etc after fermentation), as they find that it smooths out astringency and gives body.
This wine is deliciously Provencal with sweet red berry fruit, fennel and thyme flavours. Wonderfully easy to drink.
2005 Sangiovese
Most ly Sangiovese with 7% of Nero D’Avola, Colorino and Cinsault
This fruit hails from San Benito county, one valley over from Salinas, close to Colera and is one of the cooler areas for Sangiovese in California. Randall is actually as interested in Italian as he is in Rhone varietals and if the Nebbiolo we tasted from barrel is an indication of where he is heading with these, then then future for Bonny Doon Italiano is looking good.
I asked him which he preferred and he answered with a shrug.
“Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?” Clearly, a man open to all options.
“What is true allegiance” he continued on the same theme “ Is it to a brand or to something higher and more noble like the terroir? Ultimately, you have to say, what is the best wine you can make, not what is the most commercial.” Amen to that, Brother Grahm.
This has extremely fresh, light fruit with a pleasingly refreshing rasp around the edges and a hint of earthiness. I like this wine but to be honest, I would like it more if it was a very every day drinking price. It is not stupidly expensive at all, but it above the everyday which for me, means it is my least favourite of the line up.
2005 Syrah Le Pousseur
From central coast, Bien Nacido vineyards where there is a lot of limestone in the soil and the temperature is definitely cool - great conditions for Syrah. Randall feels that while there has long been mystique surrounding the Bien Nacido vineyard, it is only now that it is really being farmed properly. Before, he describes the management of the vineyard as ‘horrible’. They also had problems with Pierces disease here a few years ago, but this is now more or less under control. He feels that there is a much better understanding of the problem now.
Basically, if a sharp-shooter population is detected, you nuke ‘em. Not terribly peace, love and harmony, but what are yhou going to do? He had believed that installing a net 50 feet high around the vineyards (a terribly Randall-esq solution) would work but the practical implications of that are not really feasible.
Apparently, the market for Syrah in America is pretty non-existant and Randall lays the blame for this squarely at the feet of a very vocal group of people who decided that Paso Robles Syrah was the way to go. This is blisteringly hot country and the thing about Syrah is that the stomates never close as they do with some varieties in intense heat, it just keeps going, the sugar getting higher and higher, the ph going crazy and the vine getting really stressed. The resulting juice needs a lot of manipulation and the resulting wines are dreadful.
These wannabe Rhone rangers are charging upwards of $50 a bottle for a wine from a brand new vineyard that is 15% abv and has the consistency of motor oil. No wonder there is no market.
On to happier things though –this wine is absolutely delicious! Very juicy, ripe fruit with fresher redcurrant underneath as well as characteristic Syrah white pepper spice, liquorices and hints of flowers. It has both great complexity and fabulous freshness – a fantastic example of what can be done with this variety outside of the ‘pot of jam’ stylistic arena.
2004 Cigare Volant
50% Grenache, 24% Mouvedre, 22% Syrah, 3% Carignan, 1% Cinsault
We finally get to the king of kings in the Dooniverse and on that subject, Randall has another riff. Screw cap as all of his wines, including this one, are now bottled under this closure.
Randall was an early convert and he feels that while he didn’t fully understand screw cap reduction at first he now really believes that this closure is great for red wines. What had been happening was that the wine was totally brilliant in bottle for 3 – 4 months and then it regressed and de-evolved, with really funky elements emerging and lots of reduction. Some times decanting cleaned it up, other times it was more persistent.
Unfortunately, this happened when they were trying to sell it and it was being reviewed, with depressing consequences, but Randall persevered. He began to notice that the more concentrated and minerally intense the wine was, the more intense the regression. He is currently developing analytical data to correlate this but has found that keeping wine longer in cask and giving it more air, plus bottling with much less sulphur helps enormously. He feels in a bottling under both cork and screw cap, at 10 years down the line, screw cap would definitely emerge as the winner. The wine might be much more coiled, closed and mineral under the latter at first, but long term, there is no competition.
Wine is a living organism , Randall explains and like all living organisms, it has Chi. The Chi in wine is its ability to tolerate oxygen and when young, it needs to use this as if not, it will be more susceptible to oxygen when older. However, once the tannins have softened and rounded somewhat, oxygen is no longer required, so you exclude it. In a perfect world, you need a gradual change.
This is full of vibrant red and black fruit with hints of floral and spice on the nose. On the palate there is more warm, ripe fruit flavours with liquorice, fresh rosemary, game and pepper, all bordered by an edge of stony minerality.
2005 Bien Nacido Vineyard
Although Bonny Doon has been making Syrah from this section of the Bien Nacido vineyard for some years now, this is the first time that they have produced a bottling. Before, the fruit was always all blended in with other wines. However given that X-Block, where this Syrah hails from, contains the oldest Syrah in Santa Maria and among the oldest in California (first planted in 1973), this is special stuff and definitely worth of its own label.
Bien Nacido is famously cool climate thanks to the fogs streaming up through the gently rolling hills. This, and the unique soils, consistently give fruit that is a world away from the jam and jelly flavours of much Californian Syrah. We fell utterly and irrevocably in love with this wine immediately, the intensity (and yet still remarkably elegant) fruit being completely delicious.
Intense black fruit with black spice, leather, liquorice and mineral. The wine is still in its infancy, but there is already more than enough to be getting on with; a fabulous balance of earth, fruit and animal.
So taken with this were we that we are going to have some shipped especially for us, so do keep an eye on the list as there won’t be much and it won’t last long.
2006 Le Vol des Anges
100% botrytised Roussanne Again, the fruit is from the Beeswax vineyard were they had lots of botrytis in 2007, picking 4 – 5 times and using sorting tables as well, so this is very close to 100% botrytised. Fermentation was in some stainless but also some acacia wood barrels.
Randall believes that this is the best dessert wine that they have ever made at Bonny Doon and may be the best, full stop. Quite an admission to make, considering what we have just tasted.
This had a lovely beeswaxy, balm-like quality in the mouth with honeyed quince and nectarine flavours as well as an edge of orange marmalade and of course, some more beeswax.
Delicious, but for my money, not a patch on the Bien Nacido Syrah.
Tasting over and Randall had to go. More grapes were immanent and he needed to be there, guiding them the nascent wines through their very first stages. Alex was going to take us for proper Mexican food which we were all incredibly excited by and before Randall left, he urged us all to have at least 3 tacos each. “Try everything!” he ordered.
Alex clambered aboard the automobile of shame (Amit’s car) and we piled in to the Chrysler. He took us on a scenic drive past the beach and pier which looked like a completely different world in the bright day light. There were still hints of tat, but the dark and oppressively dirty atmosphere had completely lifted and it seemed almost jolly, if a bit Blackpool-esq. We finally stopped in the car park behind a small and completely unprepossessing place on a busy road called Tacos Moreno. There did not seem to be anything terribly significant close to it in terms of office blocks etc but the line stretched out of the door and down the street. A good sign.
We finally got to the front and ordered tacos, quesadillas and beers. It all smelt really good. Apparently, the daughter of the owner is or was in the American ladies boxing team and she is often seen manning the tills. Not this lunch time though. The young lady behind the counter looked far too petit and delicate.
The food came quickly and was delicious. I am definitely not an expert on Mexican cuisine, this only being the second meal of this persuasion that I have ever eaten, but it tasted sensational – even my relatively watered down, meat-free, cheese free version. The mix of people in the place was impressive. Everything from Mexicans to men in suits to one stick thin, incredibly toned, archetypal Californian blonde who looked like she ate only undressed salad for lunch. Turns out she in fact eats two tacos with both meat and cheese but perhaps today was a special occasion.
We asked Alex about where we should go for dinner that night, mentioning that we had ended up on the Pier the night before. He winced at this and suggested one of two places in the far more salubrious streets of Santa Cruz, one of which was a wine bar called Soif. It sounded good, so after returning to the motel for more work, we met up at the earlier time of 6.30pm for a stroll into the centre.
Amit had apparently taken the decision that afternoon not to accompany us down to Santa Barbera the next day as he had to be back in San Francisco that evening and this would therefore mean driving for 8 – 9 hours in a single day, for only one wine visit. This was very sad news for our party but even more so for Wade. We said that we would see if we could fit him into our relatively small car but as all the luggage would have to come with us (the bar car had kindly been transporting Emily and Rebecca’s suitcases around California), it was not looking hopeful. This did however mean that we wanted to have a really good dinner with lovely wine as it would be our last night together.
Tonight we were definitely on the slick, as opposed to the mean, streets of Santa Cruz. Well dressed, happy looking people strolled, diners dined at tables in the open air and two bands played on the pavement, mere blocks from each other. One was a rather motley collection of either hippies or the homeless. It was difficult to say. The other was Mexican. Both were rather good.
We turned off onto a side street in search of Soif and came across yet another band. This one, inexplicably, had chosen to play under a dusty, unprepossessing tree in a parking lot where there was no audience and not much hope of one. When they struck up, this decision made more sense. Comprised of three people who were either bohemian to a slightly scary degree or who had over the course of their lives sampled the Chronic rather too enthusiastically (they could have been both, mind), there was a solid, matronly looking keyboard player dressed in floaty Indian type skirt and top, a man with long hair and beard, both greying, clutching a tambourine and a slightly younger woman playing a recorder. The keyboard player warbled along tunelessly to the discordant jumble they were producing. We paused momentarily to take it all in and they ignored us completely, which at least made it very easy to slope off again without too much fuss.
Soif was just down the road from there and it was everything that we had been searching for, really quite fruitlessly, since Fort Bragg. A large square room with a small glassed in section which served as a shop at the one end and a very high ceilinged room with dark walls on which hung 4 vines, complete with trailing root systems. Smaller tables of two and four ran around the outside of the room with larger, long tables down the middle of the room and it was on one of these that we were soon ensconced after we had descended on the shop, shrieking in delight. The man behind the counter was remarkably calm and collected, given that 6 excitable strangers had taken over and were rummaging around in a frenzy.
We emerged with several bottles which we had with absolutely delicious food – I had sugar snap pea salad, roast fingerling potatoes and tuna tartare. It was all fabulous and judging from the utter spotlessness of the plates that were finally returned to the kitchen, everyone else thought so to. Finally, we had had a meal which was what I always imagine all good Californian food to be (and what I have had previously, on trips when someone else was paying and budgets weren’t tight) – fresh and simple with the quality of the ingredients really being allowed to steal the show. We can all highly, highly recommend Soif to anyone visiting Santa Cruz and if you already live there, you almost certainly know all about it already
Feeling very content and relaxed, we left Soif after asking our charming waiter for directions to anywhere which would still be open, for a drink. He directed us to a bar in a hotel, a few streets away which apparently stayed open till the wee-est of hours and so we headed there.
I did not last long as although it was suitably dive-bar ish, with dark leather booths, dark walls and low lighting, almost everyone was smoking. So much for the idea of a California where you get hauled off to a maximum security prison if you so much as think about lighting up. Even after Amit had commandeered the juke box and had something other than soft rock blaring forth, it was all just too doused in a blue haze, so Jude and I left and walked back through the cool fog along utterly deserted streets to the motel.
