Bonny Doon as standard bearer?

[Andy Lynes]

Bonny Doon went from a struggling start-up to a standard in the California wine industry. Has that change affected your winemaking choices?

[Randall Grahm]

Dear Andy,

Thanks for your question. I'm not quite sure that we are officially eligible to be a "standard barrier". Our relative success has definitely been a mixed blessing. In principle, it should give give us (I'm still waiting for the "success dividend") enough financial cushion to work more freely, i.e. do the things that we really want to do - farm vineyards properly, etc. In fact, the commercial success of certain brands, viz. Big House Red and White have turned into a sort of wild ride with all sorts of unintended consequences. For example, we have become or at least imagine ourselves becoming more dependent on larger distributors, the very same ones who are not so clever at selling all of our little oddball, fussy, Ugly Duckling wines - the charbonos and montonicos of the world. So, there have been trade-offs as there always is, but if we remain smart about our growth, it should (some day, at least) give us the freedom to bring more toys to the sandbox. Cheers, R.