Haresh Shah
The People, The Pride, The Passion And The Philosophy Of Making California Wines
His desk is huge and cluttered and we’re face-to-face with an unkempt and eccentric looking vintner wearing the wine stained sweatshirt bearing the logo of one of his creations, Le Sophiste. With shoulder length long black hair, he looks like a cross between Tom Jones and Abbe Hoffman. Bonny Doon‘s President for Life and the founder, Randall Graham is known in the industry as the Rhône Ranger as in the Lone Ranger, a.k.a Crazy Randall, because of his refusing to succumb to what he calls the terror of Cabernets and Chardonnays. Instead, he devotes his energy and resources to growing exclusively the Rhône varietals such as Grenache, Mourvedre, Marsanne, Rousanne, Viognier, Cinsault and Syrah. His response to the industry’s perception of himself: when your foes believe that you are insane, you have a great technical advantage.
Life is too short to keep drinking the same wines, Graham philosophizes, I have a soft spot for ugly duckling grape verities, he adds with a wry smile. Randall studied philosophy at the University of California in Davis, prior to getting into the making of wines in 1983. Realizing hat he wasn’t a good philosopher, he decided to blend his love of philosophy with that of wines he would make.
He believes wines need certain raison d’etre, and he has made Bonny Doon’s mission to make wines that complement California’s emerging fusion cuisine, which is closer to the Mediterranean and south of the border than it is to the American meat and potatoes.
His is a loft office in what once must have been a barn. I see a cat scurrying in the background and also a couple of young women busily hurrying back and forth across the hall carrying stack of papers. The cackle of the wood burning fire place makes you fell warm and cozy on this cold, gray and rainy day
The looks and the ambience of the place reminds me of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young classic of the early Seventies.
Our house is a very very very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything’s easy ‘cause of you.
Randall’s eccentricity and the courage of his conviction shows in his demeanor and the pride in his going “solo” against the wind in the wines he chooses to make. Bonny Doon wines are hand crafted and produced with tender loving care. The philosophy and the character of those wines is apparent in their creative labels illustrated with unusual, if not controversial images of Alcatraz prison, a flying saucer beaming up above a Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyard, a portrait of Marcell Proust, and in the contents of those bottles described by the RG himself, sounding scholarly with a tongue in cheek humorous twist. Here is how he describes Le Sophiste: Sophism: from Gk. sophistes sage (def): A spacious argument for displaying ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone. And then throws in some Italian just for the fun of it. Like on the label of Moscato del Solo; stampatore o’dell. incisore c. casa. DOONOMINAZIONE DI ORGINE CONTROLLATA 1993. DA SERVIRE FRESCO.
●●●
My first awareness of California came when I met Ann (Stevens) at Positano restaurant in Munich. I became instant friends with Ann and her husband Mark. It was because of them that three years later I ended up moving to Santa Barbara, California. And it was them who first introduced me to California wines and what has now become known as California cuisine.
Mark introduced me to the Fetzer Zinfandel, which was so good, but a bottle cost $3.50. A hefty sum in the early Seventies. We decide to buy a case instead, for $36.00. Certainly the first of many we would continue to acquire and consume. Little did I know, twenty years later I would be sitting in Hopland in Mendocino County with Ken Boek – the Master Gardener at Fetzer Valley Oaks Food & Wine Center, who would introduce us to the basics of making of the wines. True to its creed of from earth to the table, Fetzer has committed itself to the organic farming. As Jimmy Fetzer, the oldest of the eight Fetzer children and the winemaker tells it: the first step in making wine is growing grapes.
Fetzer is the largest mainstream winery in Mendocino County. The business no longer belongs to the family – though they still till the land and make their wines. Personally heart breaking for me is that under the corporate umbrella of Brown Foreman, Fetzer family too has succumbed to the terror of the two Cs, and they no longer make the Zin that introduced me to good American wines. Apparently Zinfandel is an extremely low yielding grape. Another reason Cabernet Sauvignon claims competitive advantage. Small comfort that there is still a strand that bind us. Jimmy Fetzer, is married to one of our own: September 1974 Playmate Kristine Hanson. At the time of publication, a student of communications at California State University in Sacramento and working part time as a black jack dealer at Harrah’s Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. We run into jeans clad Jimmy at Boonville’s Pinot Noir tasting. He is soft spoken, tall and handsome, a proud wine maker who is equally as proud of his beautiful centerfold wife; she looks sexier now than when she appeared in Playboy more than twenty years earlier.
●●●
As we crisscross the wine country, I realize that eventual corporate buy outs or not, the business of making wines is basically tied to the soil and the farming, which at the end of the day is a family affair. Dry Creek is the father/daughter team of which David Stare is the owner wine maker and his daughter Kim takes care of the marketing. Kim’s husband Don Walker too is enlisted and is now in the process of learning the ropes.
Business should never get too big for its britches,
David Stare tells us as we are having a lunch at Bistro Ralph in downtown Healdsburg. Here is the man with degree in civil engineering from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and MBA from Northwestern University. Academically oriented, he looks the role of his preppy self, dressed in his khakis and crew neck sweater – a tedious nerd. But as he puts it, from early on he was becoming a cork dork. This leads him to add yet another degree in enology from University of California at Davis. An article in The Wall Street Journal talking about the bright future of the wine industry in the U.S. prompts him to combine his business acumen with his “cork dork” passion and take a plunge by buying 55 acres of land in Sonoma County in 1972. Twenty three years later, Dry Creek wines are considered to be some of the best values for the everyday wine consumers.
He believes, Wine should not be an investment. It’s something you buy because you enjoy it at the time. So do 90% of Americans who consume their purchases the same evening on which it was bought.
The morning, we cross the Golden Gate Bridge to visit Dry Creek, I feel a certain affinity for their wines. I couldn’t help but think of the evening almost fifteen years earlier, my colleague Donald Stewart and I had killed two bottles of their Fumé Blanc over a dinner – which helped us resolve some work related conflicts the two of us were experiencing. Just what good wines are supposed to do.
In the early days, Dry Creek produced predominantly white wines, among them Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Fumé Blanc. So did most of the California wineries. It all changed almost overnight when in 1992, the sales of red wines sky rocketed in the aftermath of the highly watched CBS program 60 Minutes aired a segment called The French Paradox, crediting red wines for the longevity and good health the French citizens enjoyed.
●●●
Later that afternoon we meet with Bob Levy, the winemaker and one of the partners of Merryvale Vineyards. Bob had joined University of California in Davis to study medicine, instead he got interested and switched to enology. We spend fair amount of time in Merryvale’s barrel room, tasting and talking wines. Lightly bearded and balding Bob is a serious man, even looking a bit sad and melancholic at times. He gives you a feeling of being more of a doctor or a professor than the man in such intimacy with his wines. He shares with us some of his best along with his deep passion and philosophy of wine being the beverage most conducive to romance.
I see wine as romance, like raw oysters. Blend good wine with good food and think of intimate things that can happen.
His thoughts are centered around romance even when he speaks of the technical aspects of wine making.
Timing for picking grapes is extremely important. Harvesting is the most exciting time. We work 18 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s a multiple orgasmic feeling.
In that barrel room filled with the pungent aroma of the wines aging, listening to Bob Levy talk about them makes Omar Khayyam come alive:
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou
●●●
How could one even begin to talk about California wines without talking about the Mondavi family and the invaluable contribution made by the patriarch Robert Mondavi for putting American wines on the world map? He not only makes some of the best California wines but he is also the ambassador at large for the entire wine industry of the United States. Robert Mondavi will also go down in the history as having forged the joint-venture with Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Mouton-Rothschild and establish Opus One winery right across the street from his own. In the true family tradition, working with him are his wife Margrit Biever, his sons Michael and Timothy and his daughter Marcia.
His striking mission style winery complex leads you in through an imposing archway flanked by the wine tasting room, a souvenir shop and the administrative offices. Inge Heinemann of public relations gives us a quick tour of the winery before we settle down for leisurely tasting of their wines paired with some exquisite dishes created specially for us by Margrit’s daughter, Annie Roberts, who is the chef at their elegant, airy and spacious Vineyard Room.
During the course of the meal, we are joined by the younger Mondavi son. Lanky, debonair, tall, brooding, gaunt and bearded with full head of black hair, Timothy is the family winemaker – though he prefers to be called the wine grower. He differs slightly with his father’s philosophy of making good wine is a skill, fine wine an art, to making good wine is a skill, growing good wine is an art Because; the three most important things that give its personality and noblesse to an artistic wine are; soil, climate and philosophy of the people involved. One needs to grow grapes in synchronization and harmony with nature. As he talks to us about wine and good life, he turns his head in a circle and looks around the room; this room is about celebration of good life. Wines are civilizing aspects of being a part of a meal and therefore of good life. And then he continues: artistic wine’s purpose is to express its personality in a pristine way. After all, life is too short to drink bad wines”. Timothy Mondavi somehow seems to echo the sentiments of the wine country’s madman, the Rhône Ranger, Randall Graham.
© Haresh Shah 2014
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
SISTER SITE
Related Story
Other Food And Wine Stories
BOY’S NIGHT OUT WITH PLAYMATES
MY INTIMATE ENCOUNTER WITH EROTIC OYSTERS
The Site
ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014
UNEMPLOYMENT BLUES
It wasn’t until after more than a year later that I show up at the unemployment office to apply for the benefits I was entitled to. This in itself was enough for David M. to wonder about during our initial interview. There were other things about my application that he couldn’t quite put in the standard slots. What followed was enough to drive him up the wall.
playboy stories 