Artist stories

On August 27, 2014, founder and CEO of Bonny Doon Vineyard, educator, author of the book, Been Doon So Long,  activist and pioneering Viticulturalist, Randall Grahm came into the KZSC Radio Station to speak about his thirty years plus of making wine in Santa Cruz County.

Bonny Doon Vineyard has been and continues to be an integral part of the Santa Cruz culture. Talk about keeping it weird, Randall has been pushing the envelope on winemaking his entire career. I had my first organic wine experience at their tasting Room almost 20 years ago. My first screw cap wine was Bonny Doon.

During the show, we spoke on many topics ranging from how Randall first got into winemaking to what are his current projects.  We discussed who and what have been his inspirations. This got us talking about why the alien is the Bonny Doon Vineyard mascot and what that has to do with Chateauneuf du Pape. He explained how he is the original Rhone Ranger and what that means.

Randall explained how Bonny Doon Vineyard helped bring the screw cap on wine bottles to an unwilling public through an amazing marketing event that happened NYC in 2001 called the Funeral of the Cork.

Randall talked about his estate Popelouchum in San Juan Bautista and how it got its name. We discussed his newest project creating 10,000 new varieties of grapes revealing how and why he is making so many new grape varietals. Lastly, we talked about how is he a terrior seeker and what does that mean.