Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/501762
6 8 V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T | M a y - J u n e 2 015 w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m Th e Next Level of D oon Randall Grahm's Popelouchum experiment takes winegrowing to extremes titure of some of the brands that made him an icon, Grahm seems poised to rise again. I n 2 0 1 1 , G r a h m p u r c h a s e d Popelouchum, a 280-acre property outside the mission town of San Juan Bautista, in San Benito Coun- ty. Pronounced "pop-loh-SHOOM," the name of Bonny Doon's new property is the Mutsun word the Ohlone natives gave the site. Its secondary meaning is "paradise." It's a forlorn, ruggedly beautiful piece of parched earth that looks the way the Central Coast must o t h i n g R a n d a l l G r a h m does comes as a surprise to his colleagues. The Cali- fornia winemaker has a reputation for turning the most fanciful concepts into reality, and for zigging when everyone else zags. B e g i n n i n g i n 1 9 8 3 w i t h h i s attempt to recreate Burgundy at the site of the first Bonny Doon Vineyard in California's Santa Cruz Mountains, to his reinvention as the original Rhone Ranger, to his dives- have looked to the early Franciscan missionaries: bleached blonde, oak- studded hills beneath a relentlessly cloudless sky. A bone-dry savannah just a few animals shy of a safari, with warm-to-hot temperatures and an ever-present wind, it seemed to Grahm ideal for growing grapes from seed – even though the site gets less than 13 inches of rain per year. WINES OF PLACE H a v i n g h a d f r e q u e n t n i g h t - mares about the ravages of climate change and the inevitable cata- BY LAURA NESS