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Randall Grahm

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  1. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question. This has been enormously entertaining and amusing for me and enabled me to duck out of some of my more tedious obligations like fining trials on ultra-tannic (and alcoholic) zinfandels. I invite you all to come and visit the winery and/or tasting room here in Santa Cruz, if you find yourself out this way. Yr. R. Stranger
  2. Dear Max, It was just a lame joke about being up to my ears in aligators. Sorry for the false alarm. RG.
  3. Dear Max, You have hit the nail squarely on the head. There is absolutely no reason for a Carneros albarino that sells for $30 or for a so-so CA Sangiovese that sells for $25. I do ask myself regularly if I feel that the Cigare is really making a contribution to enriching the world and if it really is competitive w/ Chateauneufs or indeed with other wines that sell for the same price. As far as offering pleasure, I am pretty satisfied that it holds its own w/ Chateuneufs of comparable price. For me it is worthwhile because it is a work that is not yet done and I feel strongly that there are many things that I can still do to create/find greater depth and complexity in the wine. Glad that you like the freisa. RG.
  4. I am in agreement w/ Carema that it will most likely be the southern Italian grapes that will do very great work in California. RG.
  5. I don't know if there is a photo that accompanies the mention of the Citroen, but for the record, mine is a beautiful burgundy. Very, very elegant. RG
  6. To All: I'm not sure if I would be particularly capable of passing the test. There are certain white wines I know of that certainly smell like red wines. I think that this sort of category confusion is tremendously interesting. V. Nabakov was a well-known synesthete and I'm sure that he would have had difficulty was the Davis test, indeed with anything coming out of Davis. R.
  7. Dear Katie and Tana, Putting myself back in the way-back machine, I think back on the Old Telegram label. It was the original working title for Cigare Volant, but I came upon the funny story of Chateauneuf du Pape and the prohibition of the landing of flying saucers. I didn't want to waste the label so I was compelled to make a wine - in this case an old vine mourvedre, where that label would serve. I'm having difficulty thinking of other historical instances where the label was truly precedent to the wine, however I have recently caused to have plant 10 acres of tannat grapes in the relatively warmish area of Tracy, CA so that I might produce a wine called, "So, What's Tannat Like?" Best, R.
  8. Dear Jason, What I hate about the wine industry in California is its sometime acute self-consciousness. We often are just trying too hard and tend to be too focused on life-style rather than life. I think that we are too lemming-like; one winery puts on a cigar(e) band on their bottles, everybody's got to have a cigar(e) band. What I love about the industry is its relative youth and insouciance. We don't know that certain things are impossibly difficult and we pursue them with dogged ambition. As far as reliance on new oak, it is a pernicious thing. Those who think of new oak as a primary flavor in wine are the same people who think of ketchup as a vegetable. Cheers, RG.
  9. Dear Dave, A good question but more information is needed. If this is barbecue we are talking about, how sweet is the sauce? How much vinegar. If it is just plain old pig, a great dry riesling might work very well, as would a fruity red. I think that it is sometimes useful to imagine the sort of condiments that you would like to serve with a particular dish and observe if there any of the taste elements that you might find in the proposed wine. If the sauce is at all spicy, I would tend to shy away from any wine that is too high in alcohol, as the alcohol, just tends to amplify the burn. In an altogether different matter, I am told that countries that consume a substantial amount of pork in their diet, tend to also enjoy a population of women who are exceptionally beautiful. Buon appetito!
  10. Dear Rachel, I love all of my customers best. Having said that, it is undeniably useful to be selling a fair bit of one's wine in restaurants. It is a great venue to introduce customers to a new experience in an optimal context. But if the customer cannot find the wine anywhere within a 500 mile radius of the restaurant, one is definitely missing out on some sales opportunities. Cheers, RG.
  11. Dear Craig, Talk about a hanging curveball.... I have a lot of problems with the 100 pt. score system, chiefly in how it tends to fetishize wine. Wine now has become that is valuable because it is valuable not because it necessarily delivers pleasure. I think that Platonic perfection is something that one might contemplate while visiting the Parthenon or Mt. Fuji but I think that notions of perfection tend to take us away from wine rather than bring us closer to it. RG
  12. Dear Seana, I know that restaurants will often gouge mercilessly on their mark-ups but you are travelling in a very etherial crowd. I agree with you that there has definitely been alcohol inflation in recent years. This has come largely due to a particular mental virus that has infected the winemaking population at large, that seems to compel the harvest of riper and riper grapes. The popular press, in particular, Robert Parker, seems to be beating the drum very loudly for this sort of wine style - one that has more in common with say port than with table wine. Myself, I am somewhat of a lightweight as far as alcohol consumption; a little seems to go a long way. If I could drink wines that were lower in alcohol that still offered great complexity and flavor interest, I would be very pleased as I could enjoy another glass. Cheers, RG.
  13. Dear Felonioius, For the moment it is only our Estate vineyard in Soledad that is being farmed biodynamically and we are really in the earliest stages. It will take at least two or three years for the differences to really show up dramatically, I am told. We are farming a very eclectic range of grapes in our vineyard so a little bit ends up in a lot of our products, but for example, the Ca' del Solo Barbera and Freisa in a few years will be made from these grapes. I am trying a lot of other pretty radical practices in this vineyard, viz. dry-land farming (in ultra arid conditions) that will either be spectacularly successful (or not). I have also noticed a great difference in wines made from grapes that are farmed biodynamically. They are richer in minerals and just seem to be a lot more expressive. I am very, very enthusiastic about this project moving forward. Cheers, RG
  14. Dear Lesley, Yes, that is correct. I have not been happy with the synthetic closures for some time now. They perform reasonably well mechanically but they seem to suffer from the tragic flaw of causing the wine to age much more rapidly that it would with a conventional cork. It is my intention to move our entire line over to Stelvin screwcaps within the next year and we are well on our way to meeting that goal. We have been tremendously happy with both the performance of the screwcap as well as with the reception from our customers. I am asking my colleague, John Locke, to contact you to set up a meeting in Montreal, if time permits. Cheers, R.
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