Guest Blog: Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyards

Randall Grahm of the Bonny Doon Vineyards fame is rolling into town for the 2013 Burlington Wine & Food Festival and to honor his much anticipated arrival we are giving a shout out blog style and sharing a bit of his whit and charm. Read an excerpt below, and if you're interested in reading more from him, click the link at the bottom to purchase his signed, first-edition print.

"Just a quick heads-up/disaster preparedness warning: My first book,“Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology,” has been published by the generally sober and presumably reputable University of California Press. The book is a compendium of the choicest bits of Dooniana from the newsletters over the last twenty years, as well as some work that has been published in sundry journals, magazines, reviews and revistas, in addition to some new bespoke pieces."

"In 2009, two years after the sale of Big House and Cardinal Zin brands, there is still considerable confusion about what precisely has been sold and exactly who or what constitutes Bonny Doon in its current incarnation. Most disturbingly, it now appears to be karmic payback time after my years of pushing the envelope, marketing- and promotion-wise. The wines we are now producing are much better and more “serious” – if by that we mean as winegrowers we are more focused and attentive – but I fear my reputation as a jocular marketeer may forever-doom (or doon) my chances of the world ever taking the wines themselves seriously.1 Our distributor in New York somewhat facetiously suggested that I consider taking out an advertisement in the Wine Spectator to dispel the confusion within the industry about the company, with the ancillary benefit of improving diplomatic relations with the Spectator. I was nervous about taking out the ad for a number of reasons – it was quite dear for a winery our size, seemed to be advertising was that you were in trouble.

The piece was revised numerous times. When I first wrote it, I attempted to channel the spirit of Robert Crumb (in the vague and unrealistic hope that I might persuade him to draw the strip). The early versions were perhaps a bit too raw, self-deprecating, and self-revelatory.2 Maybe a little too self-consciously, I ended up toning it down more than I should have. I had tried to make the case that many company was really all about transparency, and it seemed that a little brutal honesty would likely be well appreciated. Or not.

Crumb was, not surprisingly, unavailable, but we were fortunate to find a wonderful cartoonist in Ed Piskor. Ed was infinitely patient with my unending requests for revisions, and in the end of the strip, shown in the following spread, turned out great, with a lot of fine detail. The strip ran, and the Wine Spectator loved it. We turned it into a lovely poster, and many customers called us to obtain a copy. But it did not seem to drive sales a whit, one very important metric of how one’s brand is valued. Maybe there is more karma to be worked out. Alternative explanation: people are now too absorbed in their own problems to pay much attention to almost anything that does not hit them squarely over the head. (FALL 2008)"

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