User:Rhone Angel/Bonny Doon Draft

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Randall Grahm with bottles of Bonny Doon wines

BONNY DOON VINEYARD
is a winery based in Santa Cruz, California, the heartland of New Age thinking, dreaming and deferred transition to “adulthood”. Founded in the eponymous bucolic hamlet in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1983 by Randall Grahm, Bonny Doon Vineyard became primarily known for its pioneering work with Rhône varieties, as single varietal wines and as blends. Le Cigare Volant, the flagship wine of Bonny Doon, was the first known attempt at a Châteauneuf-du-Pape-styled blend in California; its inaugural flight was in 1984 and has been produced continuously by the winery to the present date. Bonny Doon has garnered the reputation as an innovator, principally in its embrace of lesser-known (though no less “noble”) grape varieties, viz. mourvèdre, cinsault, carignane, grenache, charbono, sangiovese, nebbiolo, dolcetto, malvasia bianca, roussanne, marsanne, grenache blanc, albariño, loureiro and moscato giallo, as well as by its willingness to experiment with a wide-range of wine styles. The winery has had a long history of winemaking innovation and experimentation. It is believed that it was the first known winery in California to commercially produce wine (Muscat “Vin de Glacière”) by the process of cryoextraction, and the first in California to work with micro-oxygenation. Bonny Doon Vineyard is well known for its work with Stelvin® screwcaps, and was the first in California to embrace screwcaps for premium wines on a large scale, with the release of Big House Red in 2001. Bonny Doon is no less well known for its innovative and creative marketing and for its use of humor in wine labeling and packaging. Randall Grahm has expressed contrition at the deftness of the Bonny Doon marketing effort, feeling that it has ultimately detracted from the perception of the seriousness of the wines themselves.

Since the adoption of Biodynamic® farming practices in 2004 and the radical slimming down of both the product portfolio and the overall case production (with a concomitant greater degree of focus and attention to detail) in 2006, Bonny Doon Vineyard wines have greatly improved, evincing more complexity and in the case of the red wines, greater age-worthiness. (In the Fall of 2006, Randall Grahm sold the Big House and Cardinal Zin brands to the Wine Group, but still retains ownership of Bonny Doon Vineyard; Pacific Rim Winemakers was reconstituted as an independent company in Washington State, still owned by Randall Grahm, but operating independently from Bonny Doon Vineyard.)

BONNY DOON VINEYARD | BIODYNAMICS®
Bonny Doon Vineyard adheres to the sustainable and conscious practice of biodynamic farming and winemaking. They employ these principles to harmonize their activities in the vineyard and cellar with the rhythms and intelligence of nature, encouraging the health and vitality of the soils, vines and ultimately the wines. The practice encompasses farming without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, fumigants or GMOs; Bonny Doon Vineyard’s Ca’ del Solo Estate Vineyard in Soledad received Biodynamic certification from Demeter-USA in 2007, as have a preponderance of their contract growers more recently. It is Bonny Doon Vineyard’s professed intention that all of its vineyards achieve Demeter certified status within the next five years.

BONNY DOON VINEYARD | WINES
Bonny Doon Vineyard is on a journey that began with “wines of effort,” wines that were pleasing, harmonious and gave a certain intellectual frisson. (What if you were to try to create something like a Châteauneuf-du-Pape blend in California or put Muscat grapes in the freezer?) Randall Grahm felt a strong sense of incongruity between his professed esteem for vins de terroir (wines expressive of the site from which they derive) and the stylized, strong winemaker-input wines (vins d’effort) that he was producing, as well as a sense of frustration in his inability to work with biodynamic grapes on the large scale that Bonny Doon Vineyard had attained. These factors impelled his decision to sell off the Big House and Cardinal Zin brands. The current Bonny Doon line-up of wines reflect a commitment to a less manipulated, more hands-off winemaking approach, as well as a commitment to greater transparency in the wine labeling. (Bonny Doon Vineyard has adopted the voluntary practice of ingredient winemaking labeling, including the indication of levels of sulfur dioxide in the wine at bottling.) Grahm has recently purchased a 280-acre parcel of land in San Juan Bautista, where he plans to plant an Estate vineyard of non-standard grape varieties.

BONNY DOON VINEYARD | CIGARE FAMILY WINES
A complex and relatively functional family unit inspired by wines traditionally produced in the Rhône Valley of Southern France; Bonny Doon Vineyard’s Le Cigare Volant and its vinous confrères pay homage to the wines of the celebrated appellation Châteauneuf-du-Pape. (There is or was a particularly strange ordinance on the books of the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, adopted in 1954, prohibiting the landing of “flying saucers” and “flying cigars” in its vineyards.)

• Le Cigare Volant: Bonny Doon Vineyard’s flagship wine, first launched in 1984, is a classic red Rhône blend of grenache, mourvèdre, syrah and cinsault. It is typically less alcoholic or tannic than a Châteauneuf-du-Pape; it is a finesse wine, capable of extremely long ageing.
• Le Cigare Blanc: is the white analogue of Le Cigare Volant, made from the principle white grapes of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (grenache blanc and roussanne) in varying percentages from year to year. A rich, and somewhat unctuous wine, well suited for gastronomy, Cigare Blanc’s typical flavor profile would express the character of quince and Asian pear from the roussanne, notes of tarragon, lemongrass and spiced melon from the grenache blanc.
• Vin Gris de Cigare (cinsault, grenache, mourvèdre, syrah, grenache blanc and roussanne): is a dry, bright rosé of filigreed fruit – pale cherry, strawberry and a hint of sassafras. Botanical, hillside herbs add savory notes akin to wild Provençal lavender, rosemary and anise.
• Le Vol des Anges: or “Angel’s Flight” is a decadent, botrytised roussanne sweet wine (available only in botrytis vintages) with an autumnal quality reminding one of pome fruit – pears & quince - as well as white nectarine, apricot and even a hint of blood orange.

BONNY DOON VINEYARD | CA' DEL SOLO VINEYARD WINES
Ca’ del Solo is the 160-acre frontier outpost of Bonny Doon Vineyard, located on the east side of the Salinas Valley between Gonzales and Soledad. Farmed biodynamically since 2004 and certified by Demeter USA® in 2007, Ca’ del Solo produces wines with a discernible mineral character, perhaps due to its silaceous soils and restricted yields.

• Albariño: Unique Iberian cuvée (with a non-trivial volume of loureiro in the mix) possesses a crystalline mineral quality, great persistence on the palate, and a bracingly crisp, grapefruit, yuzu and tangerine-dream finish. A perfect bracing apéritif and particularly well-suited to pair with Asian food or shellfish.
• Muscat: A musky, melodious, melon-like meditation on moscato giallo. Powerfully aromatic, mineral intensive with a refreshingly clean acidity, the wine is just slightly off-dry and will never fear to tread where chili peppers, ginger, cumin, curry leaf or cardamom carry on.
• Dolcetto: Dolcetto, the little sweet one, is on the fruitier side of the rubine spectrum. Packed with stone and berry flavors, aligned with pungent earth tones, this dulcet, dusky Italian beauty shows soulful minerality in spades.
• Nebbiolo: The real thing, replete with rose petal, tar and iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove structure. While charming now, this noble Italian varietal will likely continue to develop for a decade or more in bottle. In select vintages, Bonny Doon Vineyard employs the technique of air-drying a certain percentage of grapes for 10-14 days in the manner of a Sforzato, to attain additional complexity and alcoholic strength.

BONNY DOON VINEYARD | SINGLE VINEYARD VARIETAL WINES
Bonny Doon Vineyard also produces limited quantities of single vineyard wines, as an indication of its esteem for wines expressive of a sense of place.

User:Rhone Angel/Bonny Doon Draft

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