Speaker 3 1:50

Uh, good morning, Mark.

Speaker 1:51

Hey,

Speaker 3 1:51

Francis. How are you this morning?

Speaker 1:53

I'm great. How you doing?

Speaker 3 1:54

I'm doing, I'm doing pretty well, but I'm amused at this article that you handed me right before we went on the air about restaurant accounting.

Speaker 2:00

Different people handle recession differently, Francis. You know, every, every restaurant does it a little differently.

Speaker 3 2:04

Yeah. You know, it's funny. I remember talking with a friend of mine who r- runs a restaurant in France, and he's like, "You know, in France, the taxes are five times what they are in the United States." I was like, "Really?" He's like, "Yes, and we pay half of them." You know? So it's, uh, it's interesting how people get around. But in America, one of the things that's an interesting shift is before we got into the restaurant really, I remember... We have old- older friends who, who ran restaurants for a long time, and they have these great stories of, you know, garbage bags full of cash. I knew a guy who had a place on the boardwalk in Point Pleasant. The police used to show up at the end of the day when he would take garbage bags full of dollar bills and, and take them home. The accounting wasn't exactly as precise back then, and people played kind of fast and loose with the rules. And in our... I wish I was born in those days. Well,

Speaker 2:52

lots of cash. You know, that's, those are the days of cash.

Speaker 3 2:55

Well, today the whole idea of restaurants as a cash business is really, especially on the high end, it just, it, y- n- Doesn't

Speaker 3:01

exist

Speaker 3 3:01

99% of the stuff is paid for with a credit card. People have a, come in and have one drink and put a credit card on the bar. So what's happened in the restaurant business is we manage our numbers very, very closely. We spend a lot of money on computers and stuff to manage things and, and keep expenses really in line. the old fast and loose days of restauranting are with us again.

Speaker 3:18

It has definitely got, it's got a little, uh, Wild Wild West to it.

Speaker 3 3:21

Uh, Maloney Porcelli has launched, an expense report generator Fabricator is really more like it. Michael Stillman is president of, uh, Fourth Wall Restaurants, which owns Maloney Porcelli's, famous restaurateur, famous restaurant, great restaurant, great steak. but they have launched a site, a service to their clients, if you will,

Speaker 3:42

here's what I'm gonna tell you. I did not believe this until I actually went to the website and there it was.

Speaker 3 3:48

and what it does is it generates you phony receipts in the amount of your restaurant bill. What, you say? Let me be a little more clear. You go to and type in whatever you spent at whatever restaurant you want. So say the amount is $200, $365 and 94 cents. It will then generate for you bogus receipts

Speaker 4:12

Bogus, really, really bogus receipts

Speaker 3 4:14

From other places. So for instance, Mark and I went just to test it out, and Mark typed in some number, and it generated a PDF of four wrinkled... taxi receipts, one receipt for a fictional restaurant called The Panini Experience, cash register receipt that looks like you took your cash register receipt and put it on a, on a copy machine and copied it.

Speaker 4:34

copied. And the receipts are pre-wrinkled, so you don't have to worry- about doing that.

Speaker 3 4:38

There's one from, uh, the Office Supply Hut. Again, no address given or, or phone number given to the Office Supply Hut. Uh, and one from Crabapples Neighborhood Grill and Bar. I don't think Crabapples actually exists.

Speaker 4:52

It- It's amazing

Speaker 3 4:53

No. I think,

Speaker 4:54

by the

Speaker 3 4:54

way- No. It's not amazing. It's not amazing. It's, um... Now, I'm, I-

Speaker 4:59

Instead of Expense a Steak, maybe they should have named it Miss a Steak.

Speaker 3 5:02

Steal a Steak? Um, can I tell you something? I'm not an attorney by profession.

Speaker 5:08

I'm pretty sure-

Speaker 3 5:10

Nor am I a police officer

Speaker 5:11

that this is an issue.

Speaker 3 5:12

I don't think this is legal. Um, now, I don't think that they can be convicted of fraud, only aiding and abetting.

Speaker 5:20

Aiding and abetting fraud, right. Exactly. It's, they're not actually committing the fraud,

Speaker 3 5:25

but they're- Let me read you some quotes, Restaurant Hospitality Magazine writes about this. They say, "But it's no joke, and ethical considerations aside, the expense report generator looks like a winning idea for the restaurant- and its customers, unless the IRS catches you and sends you all to jail."

Speaker 5:40

Oh.

Speaker 3 5:40

Uh,

Speaker 5:41

it- I, you know, it's funny, the name of the article is "Psst, Don't Tell Accounting" And I think it really should be, "Psst, Don't Tell IR- the IRS."

Speaker 3 5:47

Really. You, and you can't write Psst, Don't Tell and then write about it in the, in the magazine. Um, okay. Uh, here's a quote from, uh, Michael Sillman, "With the financial industry in turmoil and unemployment higher than it's been in decades, it's easy to understand why those who still have their jobs are hesitant to appear brazen with the corporate card." Never considering that they might want to actually stop being brazen- with the card. Uh, more qu- more quote, "We're in the heart of expense account country, just footsteps away from the likes of," and he names his clients in this, "Citigroup, BlackRock Group, Morgan Stanley. This campaign serves as a way to remind our patrons that we're a vital part of their business." Defrauding you- the American people.

Speaker 6:29

Well, defrauding their bosses-

Speaker 3 6:30

Defrauding their bosses

Speaker 6:31

you name it. The idea here is to take your receipt and to pump it through this receipt generator so nobody knows you went to Maloney Porcelli. Um, it's all bad. It's all bad. Every bit

Speaker 3 6:42

of it is bad. It's illegal. I'm- it's gotta be illegal. Right, now here's some more.

Speaker 6:44

Here-

Speaker 3 6:44

I,

Speaker 6:44

there's, there's one part of this that's really good- One of the- that we have to share

Speaker 3 6:47

patrons who want to take their high-priced leftovers back to the office can- This is

Speaker 6:51

the part.

Speaker 3 6:51

Can, can camouflage them in Maloney Porcelli supplied doggy bags bearing the logos of less expensive restaurants- like Chipotle, Sbarro, and Olive Garden. Now, we probably also have trademark infringement.

Speaker 7:09

Well, maybe what they've done is they've gone to Olive Garden and said, "Can we buy 1,000 of your to-go bags?"

Speaker 3 8:40

Do you think so?

Speaker 8:41

No.

Speaker 3 8:46

I gotta tell you something. I, believe in bending the rules once in a while. I'm always on the side of the restaurant. I believe in small business. But this is wrong. Well, let's rethink- This is

Speaker 8:54

wrong this particular website.

Speaker 3 8:54

And if you're an employer and you've recently had a receipt submitted from Crab Apples Neighborhood Bar Grill- you might, you might wanna give them a call. We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys on restaurantguysradio.com. Hey, everybody, and welcome back. And our guest today, is one of the most interesting, wonderful winemakers in the world. Randall Grahm is, owner of Bonny Doon Vineyards. He's, moved the wine world forward in the New World in a number of different ways, and he is one of the original Rhone Rangers, one of the f- few people to really have had an asteroid named in his honor.

Speaker 9:30

Randall, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 9:31

Oh, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 9:33

You have a new book out, Been Doon So Long. Before I talk about it, let me ask you where this came from.

Speaker 2 9:40

Well, uh, yeah, what's the purpose? you know, to paraphrase, uh, Hamlet, you know, just too many words. I don't know if there's a purpose to any book. I mean, you do it because it's, it's a joy, and, uh, it's fun, and, and you have to, and that's why you do it.

Speaker 3 9:56

Well, you know, in the forward it says, uh, in Hugh Johnson's wonderful forward, he says, "The wine needs words." We view one of our jobs, I mean, the, the one of the main jobs of the restaurateur i- and/or the great waiter is not just to serve great wine, but to contextualize it for our guests. 'Cause if I just bring you a glass- Sure of grape juice, even if it's really- Sure really tasty and you don't know that it's Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 1976, it's, it's not the same experience as, as if you do, and you know what you're drinking. It-

Speaker 2 10:24

Absolutely. Absolutely. This is... You know, I, I forget what the precise quote is, but, you know, you, you ha- you gain so much more information when you actually look at a label, uh, compared to a blind tasting. But yeah, wine is a, is a cultural experience, and it, and it's a contextualized experience, and the more you know about the context, the richer the experience is.

Speaker 10:45

Well,

Speaker 2 10:45

uh- Absolutely

Speaker 10:46

and one of the things that we know for a fact, uh, you know, the way our mind works, is that we remember things better when we assign words to it, and we verbalize that.

Speaker 2 10:54

Right. And, and I mean, I would also argue certainly wines that also refer to things beyond themselves are also more deeply, uh, imprinted. You know, in other words, va- uh, wines of, of place, wines that express a sense of place, I think also have a deeper... They register deep- deeper in our, in our, in our memory.

Speaker 3 11:13

This goes to a very central point. It's something you've always fought against, And we've always fought against, but you really, as a winemaker, have always sort of taken on the, um, the, what you call the, the people who practice, uh, a, pointillism in your- Right in your book. Which score, you, you referred to someone who relies on scores or i- obsessively scores things as, as, uh, pointillism, which I had never seen prior to, to the publishing of this book, which I, I thank you for that word. Uh, the context of a point system is a contest. the only thing a point does is it says, "This wine is better than that wine."

Speaker 11:44

Well, and how do you differentiate a 94 from a 94?

Speaker 3 11:46

Right. And it- They're

Speaker 11:47

exactly the same.

Speaker 3 11:48

Right. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, it... that's an odd and anemic context, don't you think?

Speaker 2 11:52

Well, I mean, the reality is we never experience wines, we experience ourselves experiencing wines. There's now actually been some interesting discussion lately about the enormous variability of experience of tasting wines and how non-replicable scores are. I mean, you can... It's not only does the wine change, and the wine does change dramatically over, over time- based on atmospheric conditions, barometric pressure, temperature, uh, phases of the moon, all that stuff. But our own physiology changes so remarkably, so, so dramatically, um, ba-based on our moods and our, and how we're feeling, and where we are in our own cycles. We only have the experience of ourselves. We don't really have the experience of the wine.

Speaker 3 12:38

Well, I, I wouldn't make the assertion, and I, and I, and I haven't heard you make the assertion that you can't make qualitative judgments as to some wines are better than other wines from a qualitative perspective. But even if you can, you know, in that one narrow context say, "You know what? This wine, I think, um, from a qualitative or a price point or a price to value relationship is, is somewhat better than that one over there." You know, it's like going into a bookstore and saying, "Okay, which of these books is better than the other?" Well, that doesn't help you pick which book to read, does it?

Speaker 2 13:05

Well, yeah, I mean, there's no question that some wines are great, and there's some... no question that some wines are, are dreadful. I would concede that in, in an instant. But it doesn't necessarily follow that any particular wine would be the appropriate wine for an evening, for how you're feeling, uh, or even on a particular instant. I mean, certain lesser wines, there's no, there's no question that, that lesser wines or simple wines under certain conditions can be absolutely sublime and can, can give more pleasure, as much or more pleasure than, than great wines, if you will.

Speaker 13:38

If we were simply looking at wines based on a, a solely qualitative level, we would drink the same wine every day. Correct. But who wants to drink the same wine every day?

Speaker 3 13:46

Right, until the next

Speaker 2 13:47

wine

Speaker 3 13:47

won

Speaker 2 13:47

the contest. Correct. Yeah, I mean, vegetables. I mean, like I g- I give broccoli like an 83, and I give, you know, Brussels sprouts an 87. But you know, it doesn't mean you want Brussels sprouts every, every day.

Speaker 13:56

Well, I give one farmer's broccoli an 83. I give the other farmer's broccoli an 86. Right. So you know, you have some latitude there.

Speaker 2 14:02

I mean, the point is some days a Beaujolais, you want a Beaujolais even though it's not a great wine. You want a Beaujolais because damn it, that's what you feel like drinking, and that's, and that's gonna give you a great, great amount of pleasure that day perhaps.

Speaker 3 14:14

You talk a lot about the fact that i- if winemakers are brave enough to make a wine that doesn't speak to the international palate, they, they're brave enough to take the chances on making wines that speak of a specific place. What's brave about that, and why is that riskier, to make a wine that speaks a place? Well, it,

Speaker 2 14:30

it is riskier. I mean, there's a reason why the international style has come to, prominence and dominance. Certainly it has to do a little bit with our, with our physiology. I mean, I think we are really programmed to respond to certain kinds of flavors, uh, soft flavors, warm flavors, fruity flavors, succulent flavors. these are all pleasant flavors I think with, with nice associations. The problem is that I think they are ultimately very simple flavors and, I just don't think they really get to the originality of the wine. I mean, they, they, they're, essentially confected flavors. They they fake us out. it's kind of like desserts. I mean, we like sugar. Our bodies kind of respond to sugar, but, you know, you really don't wanna be eating sweet things all the time. As, as pleasurable as an occasional dessert might be, you just, you don't wanna have this as, as a steady diet. And I don't think you really wanna have overripe confected wines as a steady diet. just it's too fatiguing.

Speaker 3 15:32

Well, you know what's funny? I think, America didn't really matter much in the wine world in 1971, I, I think. American consumers didn't matter much, and certainly the opinion of American consumers didn't matter much in 1971. Well, we embraced wine through the '80s and the '90s, and now we're the dominant, uh, wine market in the world, and certainly the drive- the largest driver of world opinion and consumption, even outside our borders. Um, one of the things that I think is very interesting is as our, our palate... You know, we came in with a fairly inexperienced palate, and y- you know, that's fine and good, but it, it's sort of like before our American palate had the chance to mature to appreciate some of the things. I mean, you don't appreciate the same things as an adult than you do as a child.

Speaker 2 16:11

It's sort of like, Lord of the Flies. Yeah. And the kids have taken over.

Speaker 3 16:15

Yeah. And

Speaker 2 16:15

the, the school kids have taken over, and our palate has become the dominant palate.

Speaker 3 16:19

Where before our palate had a chance to learn how to like... I mean, when you go to a restaurant, right? You go to a really nice restaurant and you're like, "Oh my goodness, they have mushrooms and truffles and caviar and foie gras." And if you go with a nine-year-old, you say, "Okay, n- can I have the chicken fingers for the nine-year-old?" Um, but it's-

Speaker 2 16:33

So like our world, we've asked for chicken fingers.

Speaker 3 16:35

Right. It's like, oh, well, the nine... But if the nine-year-old had all the money, the restaurant would stop serving caviar and foie gras, and is that a fair analogy?

Speaker 2 16:42

It's great. I like, I like it very

Speaker 16:43

much. Well, I guess what's remarkable about this is it's really happened in a quarter of a generation, a third of a generation. So in that 20-year period, we've changed how wine is made throughout the world.

Speaker 3 16:55

Right. So there are, the, so the American drivers of opinion aren't, are not even people who 20 years ago weren't even drinking wine, and there's some 70-year-old Italian guy in Piedmont who's been making Barolo since 1952, and, and our opinion counts more than his when it's not, I guess it's not in the American psyche to say, "You know what? Let's, let's go and see what, what he has to say, and if we don't understand it right away, let's give it some time." And, Let, let me strike a, a hopeful note for a moment. I think the American palate is getting better. I think it's, we're, we're, there's more and more people who are looking for the alternative and looking for the complexity. Would you agree?

Speaker 2 17:27

Well, here's, here's the problem in a nutshell, I think, and that is New World wines essentially have no template. There is no, platonic paradigm to say, "You know what? This is what they should taste like." In the Old World, There is at least this idea of typicity that a- Clos Vougeot succeeds to the extent that it tastes like Clos Vougeot, and a Barbaresco succeeds to the extent it tastes like a Barbaresco. In the New World, nobody knows what things are supposed to taste like. There's no kind of ideal, there's no, paradigm. all we know is we're supposed to kind of, it's supposed to taste good and we're supposed to like it, and so like it begs the question, what is good and what is likable and, or lovable? And essentially, critics are really kind of at a loss. It really kind of gets down to aesthetic judgments. What is, what is beauty in wine? And critics, I think, are hard-pressed to put themselves at risk of, of appearing foolish be-because if you're really honest with yourself as a critic, what might strike you as beautiful on one day might strike you as ugly on, on another day. So therefore, I think that what's happened with critics is the default is, "Okay, you know what? I don't want to appear to be an idiot. I want to be kind of consistent. The only things that I can consistently discern about wine is their, uh, concentration and their intensity, and that's pretty much it. The nuance, the complexity, all these things are, are, are, are much more ephemeral and more difficult to detect, and so therefore I'm gonna play it safe. I'm gonna just... I'm just gonna write about the things that are, that are good on Monday, good on Wednesday, good on Thursday."

Speaker 3 19:07

So, uh, you make, you make some musical analogies in your book. I think it's really great. You're like, you know, it's, it's like judging music based on volume, you know, where- Correct. Yeah where the marching band will always be rated higher than the chamber, uh, music quartet, you know?

Speaker 2 19:17

Right, because they turn the, turn the volume to 11. Exactly.

Speaker 3 19:20

you brought up the, question of critics, and I have to say one of... Randall, one of the things that I've always loved about your wines even before we met, and we've had the great good fortune to meet on several occasions, is, you know, a lot of people sort of, and you before most, uh, but there's, there's a sort of a growing, sense of independ-independent-minded thinkers. Although, you know, there's one critic who we've talked about on many occasions on the show, a guy named Robert Parker, and, and the, academic literature now has pointed out there's several people who posit the thesis that he is the most powerful critic of anything ever in the history of humans, there are really a couple of books written by, by that. Uh, a-any genre anywhere, he has the most power anywhere. Now, um, you thought that it would be a good idea not only to, make your wines without regard to the scores of Robert Parker, but y- uh, you kind of like to poke him in the eye. Was that, was that a great idea?

Speaker 2 20:08

Great idea, Randall. Yeah, it was brilliant. Just totally brilliant. Yeah. Good, good business plan. Good luck with that.

Speaker 20:14

If it, if... Randall, if it makes you feel any better, on our last show, we really tore into the New York Times, so. we're, we're in that same boat

Speaker 3 20:20

I think. Can I read, can I read a little from your book for just one moment, Randall? Sure. This is, uh, from Randall Grahm's book, from the introduction, been doing so long. you're talking about how you've aged and you've, you've gotten a more mature view on things. "M- my compulsion to protest, to provoke, to challenge authority, especially that of the arbiters of taste, has greatly waned. The fever, in some sense, has broken. It is of absolutely minimal interest to me now to court the goodwill of the wine press or to go out of my way to provoke its ire." Footnote, "This is, of course, patently false." Which, which, which made me say, "I love Randall Grahm." So, uh, um- Well, you

Speaker 2 20:56

can't contradict yourself on the same page. I mean, you know.

Speaker 3 20:59

Well, I think- Well, in a

Speaker 20:59

footnote you can

Speaker 3 21:00

I think you should do it immediately in a footnote. There's a great amount of integrity that comes, that comes along with, with contradicting yourself like that. So what is your relationship with the critics right now, and what is your relationship with the press, and what do you think is the st- where should people turn to, as long as they don't take it as Bible, to good advice on, on what kind of wines are out there?

Speaker 2 21:16

Well, you know, I, I honestly think, I mean, it, it's kind of trite, but I think it's totally true. Um- Find a wine merchant that you can trust. Find a wine merchant with integrity. And, and this is, this is sort of Michael Pollan's point with respect to farmers. find somebody you can look in the eye and say, "You know what? You sold me that stuff, and it was crap. You know, can you do better next time? And, and this is what I like." And the guy's gotta look you in the, in the eye and say, "You know what? Okay, You know, last time I made a mistake, but this time you're, you're, you're absolutely gonna like it." I think ultimately we need to kind of return to re- relationships, and with people we, we know and we trust, at least in principle, should know better what we might like than, you know, some anonymous person, some anonymous critic. I think these relationships with your merchant is, is, is absolutely crucial.

Francis 22:03

I've been saying the same thing for a long time in marketing. I own a, a small wine shop you know, I think the relationship with the sommelier at the restaurant or the owner or the maitre d' or whoever knows about wine in the restaurant, uh, is the same. and when I teach people, like I always say, "You know, if you're gonna say as a consumer, 'Oh, this wine is, this wine is terrible. This wine is crap. I hate it,' um, or if you're gonna say as a waiter or a sommelier or a wine buyer, 'You know, this wine is terrible,' y- you can say that if you know a lot about that wine, the place where it's from, the context of the different kinds of wines that might be made there, and a lot about-"

Speaker 22:36

What it's supposed to taste like.

Speaker 3 22:37

Right, a lot about wines in general, and you better... I think you sh- it's pretty arrogant if you don't know a heck of a lot to say, "This wine is terrible." now that being said, there are objective standards. If a wine is afflicted with botrytis cinerea, and you detect that it's afflicted with botrytis cinerea, you can say, "This wine is terrible." If a wine is corked- Well,

Speaker 2 22:52

actually, all you can say is, "This wine is afflicted with botrytis

Speaker 3 22:54

cinerea." That's true. Some people

Speaker 2 22:55

like

Speaker 3 22:55

that. True, true, true. All right, so I, even, even I've caught myself in my own value judgment argument. But I think what is true with your local wine merchant is two things can happen with that personal interaction. One is he may sell you a wine or she may sell you a wine that's very, very good and you really don't like it because what you don't need to know a lot in order to say is, "I didn't like that. I didn't like that one little bit." And now that wine merchant knows your palate Maybe the wine was fine, but they know that from now on they're probably not gonna sell you that kind of wine. Or maybe they're gonna say, "Hey, well, you know what? Try that some other day and look at it in a different light, or try that with an old cheese and, and see if you like it in the future." And I mean, that's what The Best That Wine is all about f- to me.

Speaker 2 23:39

Right. Exactly. I mean, i- it's gotta be iterative and, some data points and some learning and, you know, it just can't be done in the abstract. It... as you said, it's a real interaction.

Speaker 3 23:48

I couldn't agree more. We're gonna take a, a quick break. We're talking with, uh, Randall Graham about his, book, Been Doon So Long. It will be just a moment. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys Randall, I would like to, talk about a couple of points in your business plan. and I would like you to talk about, about those in general, um, as far as how to, how to really make it in the wine business. What we're gonna do here is I wanna talk about, number one, poking Robert Parker in the eye at every possibility you can do that. Number two, eliminating Chardonnay entirely from your portfolio in 1990. And number three, switching over entirely to screw caps.

Speaker 2 24:22

Right.

Speaker 3 24:23

Cool stuff, huh?

Speaker 2 24:25

Yep.

Speaker 3 24:25

Yep,

Speaker 2 24:25

yep.

Speaker 3 24:26

So, so why would you do all those three things? There are obviously reasons you did all those three things and, and good ones, but it would look to someone who's not really intimately acquainted with the wine business like, like that's a little kooky.

Speaker 24:35

If I were a stockholder, I'd be mad.

Speaker 2 24:38

Right. Uh, luckily I don't have any stockholders. Um, certainly the poking Parker in the eye was not a great business plan. not at all. I mean, not even close. And, and probably in retrospect, uh, if I had a little more Maturity, I would've toned it down several orders of magnitude.

Speaker 3 24:59

Um- Do you, do you think that your scores or your lack of reviews have, are, are reflective of your personal relationship?

Speaker 2 25:06

Clearly.

Speaker 3 25:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:07

No question about it.

Speaker 3 25:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:08

No question about it. I mean, there is, as I said in the book, the, the off chance that my wines actually do suck. But- I don't, I don't think that's the case.

Speaker 25:16

Right.

Speaker 2 25:17

I think, They're, they're a different style. Uh, they're, they're certainly not in, Parker's, power alley. They're not sort of in his, in his strike zone. And the fact that I kind of was a little acerbic or immature and, and did poke him in the eye, I, I think that didn't help matters. So it's kind of a double whammy, you know. Yes, the wines were not really kind of a, his style, and then secondly, I was kind of more obnoxious than I needed to be.

Mark 25:40

you made wines that, were not in the style that Parker reviews highly.

Speaker 2 25:45

But I didn't make it that way because he liked a different style. Right. I didn't make it because I liked that different

Speaker 25:49

wine style. Right. You made, you made wines because you wanted to make wines that way.

Speaker 2 25:52

Right.

Speaker 25:53

Where I think the, the, the contrapositive of that is people are making wines in his style, so he will like them.

Speaker 2 26:01

Right. And what's totally extraordinary to me is that he seems to be pretty disingenuous about, um... Just unwilling to acknowledge the, that, that fact, and that, that isn't controvertible. I mean, people do change their, their wine style to, to please him, and he's seemingly oblivious to it, which is just beyond-

Speaker 3 26:21

I can't believe that he really doesn't know that that's happening. I gotta tell you, this importer of very highly rated Par- very high, get, gets very high Parker ratings, had a tasting in New York about two years ago. And I remember I walked over to Mark, I was almost stunned into falling over, a new producer had joined this importer's portfolio, and Mark's nodding his head 'cause he knows exactly the moment I'm talking about. Yes, I do. I walked... I thought it was like somebody hit me with a bat. Um, and this person made Nebbiolo and Barolo in a way that I really liked better than any of the other Nebbiolo in this person's p- uh, portfolio because they were powerful wines, um, but they were very true to the old-fashioned way of looking at, at, at Nebbiolo.

Speaker 26:56

It tasted like Nebbiolo.

Speaker 3 26:57

And, um- Yeah more so than... And it was ma- And I said to them, I said, "You know, we're so glad that, to have you on this person's, you know, available in New York," and et cetera and so forth. And the, the young woman who was the daughter of the winemaker said, "Oh-" Uh, we'll call the wine make- we'll call the importer, uh, uh, Jonathan. Um, yes, you know, we really didn't know how to make wines until Jonathan came along and taught us, and I thought, "You've been making wines for seven genera- Are you kidding me?" Are you kidding me? He taught you? Oh, and, and, and of, and of course, over the last several years, their style has gotten more and more to be indistinguishable from a California Cabernet Sauvignon. To be Parkerized. To be a Cabernet Sauvignon from Piedmont, you know?

Speaker 2 27:35

Yes.

Speaker 3 27:35

Crazy stuff. Crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 27:36

I know. But, you know, yeah, on the other, on the other side of it, I mean, there is a... It's a totally rational thing to do. I mean, we are, most of us, present company excepted, economic actors. I mean, we... In other words, we act in our... Most of us act in our own economic interest, and it is in our economic interest to make wines that get high point scores, so-

Speaker 3 27:56

Sure

Speaker 2 27:57

you can't, you can't, uh, fault people in a certain sense. They're just sort of doing what, what's in their interest.

Speaker 3 28:03

Oh, no, I'm just... I, I was just commenting on the fact that it was sad. It's sad that, that-

Speaker 2 28:06

It's very sad yeah. It impoverishes the, the business.

Speaker 3 28:09

All right, so next big decision, 1990, uh, Chardonnay. After 1990, no more Chardonnay in Randall Grahm's portfolio. Why did you decide to eliminate-

Speaker 28:15

Because, uh, clearly because it's selling

Speaker 3 28:17

too

Speaker 28:17

well.

Speaker 2 28:18

Is there- any other answer? It's selling, it was selling far too well- A, and B, I mean, just honestly, I just felt I had nothing to add to the world's appreciation of Chardonnay. I just didn't have any ideas about Chardonnay. I suppose if I had ideas about Chardonnay, if I thought I could make something like an interesting Chardonnay that was different from everyone else's, I might have. But I, I didn't, I couldn't, and I didn't, and I, and I don't

Speaker 3 28:42

Um, that- Or I

Speaker 2 28:43

won't

Speaker 3 28:44

that, that sounds a little like a Dr. Seuss poem right there. And I won't.

Speaker 28:47

And

Speaker 3 28:47

I won't, Sam-I-Am. Sam-Sam-I-Am. Um, all right, well, I wanna talk now about this book because, um, you're one of the smartest guys writing about wine, and your newsletters are, are, uh, they're, they're... You talk about contextualizing wine. It's really, you have a very broad context of knowledge, and you're a very well-read, uh, well-educated person. And you have sort of a fanatical following among those, who are smart enough to get your jokes, which is a, which is a sort of a limiting, um- limit, li- self-limiting group. It's somewhat

Speaker 2 29:18

self-limiting-

Speaker 3 29:19

Yeah, yeah to other

Speaker 2 29:19

poor people.

Speaker 3 29:21

No, no, there are a bunch, but they're all really smart. What's interesting is, um, you, uh, to sort of enjoy your, uh, some of the aspects of your book, um, you need to know a lot about sort of literature and music and poetry and wine. So like the literature professor who knew a lot about literature but doesn't know anything about wine, he, he's not gonna get it at all. And the, and the- Right and the oenophile who knows everything about wine but doesn't really read very much- Right he, he's not gonna get it at all either.

Speaker 4 29:47

Correct.

Speaker 3 29:48

So- Well,

Speaker 29:48

y- and what I find intriguing is you better have read Cervantes and Doonesbury-

Speaker 3 29:54

or you're in big trouble. And, and, and be a drinker 'cause if you're teetotaler, it doesn't make any sense at all. so what prompted you to write? I mean, you write about wine prolifically. I, I, you know, read your newsletters. a lot of work, must go into it. They're intelligent. you know, it's pretty cool stuff. if I'm not mistaken, you have, is it Dante's, was it the Vinferno?

Speaker 2 30:10

Yeah, that, that's sort of the, the large, the large work in the book is the- Yeah is the parody of The Inferno.

Speaker 3 30:15

Yeah, okay, let me just, share with you. This is a, this is a, a parody, with, 18 cantos over 60 pages. You write a 60-page long poem. Now, w-writing The Inferno couldn't have been as difficult as writing the- Yeah the vinous parody of Dante's Inferno. You know, am, am, am I, am I right?

Speaker 2 30:33

No, I, I, I think I may have had more fun. Slightly more fun.

Speaker 3 30:37

Well, certainly more fun than I

Speaker 2 30:38

had. That's the main, that's probably the main difference.

Speaker 3 30:39

Yeah. Well, the book is great, and, uh, if you wanna pick it up, you can check it out on our website, restaurantguysradio.com. It's called Been Dune So Long. I wanna ask you about what's the direction of Bonny Doon wines? Um, y- you- Oh, thank you- you've gone

Speaker 2 30:50

through a lot of changes, obviously thank you for asking. That's, um, that's a very pertinent question. Really, you know, the subtext of the book, you know, there's a lot of parody, there's a lot of goofiness in the book and, and, and humor, and that's wonderful, and that's kind of where I've been, and, and that's who I am. But really, the, the subtext of the book is my quest, my journey in the direction of authenticity and originality and, and terroir. another way of thinking about it is sort of my journey from wanting to please other people and needing to please other people to a desire to please myself. the, the two really sort of go in parallel. my feeling right now is that there's way too much wine in the world. There's, there's plenty of wine in the world, and, I'm not interested really anymore in making pretty good wine or even good wine or even very good wine. what's interesting for me is, is the idea of potentially trying to participate in making original wine, making wine that expresses a sense of place. This, for me, is the most valuable aspect, maybe the only valuable aspect of the wine business, wines that, that really are original in virtue of expressing a sense of place.

Speaker 3 32:01

So how are you doing that? You- I know you've made some large business moves recently. You've, you've re- removed a couple of your labels that made larger quantities of wines, and you've ejected them from, from your holdings, and now you're focused on what? What, what is Bonny Doon gonna be going forward?

Speaker 2 32:13

Well, Bonny Doon going forward is going to be, uh, estate wines, I purchased some land in the town called San Juan Bautista, I wanna plant original grapes there, and I wanna do something very distinctive. Um, now, whether I succeed or not, God only knows. I may, fall on my butt, but I want to do something that really sincerely makes an effort to, to producing a wine as- of- that expresses a sense of place. It's not obvious how to do it. I think in many respects you have to kind of look to the past, for example, I don't think you want to irrigate the vineyard. I think you wanna dry farm your vineyard. I don't think you want to trellis your vineyard. possibly you want what's called a promiscuous plantation, where, where you have different crops growing side by side. Certainly, a profusion of different clones and different root stocks,

Speaker 33:01

um- So you're talking

Speaker 2 33:02

about

Speaker 33:02

field blends?

Speaker 2 33:02

of? It's sort of like non-modern winemaking.

Speaker 33:04

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 33:04

The opposite. Whatever the, whatever modern winemaking is, its opposite

Speaker 3 33:08

Well, Randall, you make the world more interesting every day for us on the wine business. There is

Speaker 33:11

no question about that.

Speaker 3 33:12

Thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2 33:13

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 33:14

If you want to check out the book, you can check out Been Doon So Long at restaurantguysradio.com. hey, everybody, welcome back. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys with Marc and Francis. I have to tell you, Marc, I wasn't kidding when I said this book was-

Speaker 33:24

Oh, it was... I gotta tell you, it- You really have to have a lot of knowledge about a lot of subjects to get it all.

Speaker 3 33:30

He... Well, you know, he's such- And- a Renaissance man. Randall, Randall himself is a Renaissance man.

Speaker 33:33

And I think I have a lot of knowledge about a lot of subjects, and I know a lot of the jokes went over my head. I just know it, sorry.

Speaker 3 33:40

I happened to major- I- in literature- I- so, uh- I- I, you know

Speaker 33:44

I consider myself a smart guy.

Speaker 3 33:45

If you don't know- And there

Speaker 33:46

was a lot of stuff

Speaker 3 33:47

that went past me okay, if, if you don't know the plot of... Okay, if you don't know the plot of Don Giovanni, it's not funny. Okay? if you've starred in D- in Don Giovanni-

Speaker 4 33:57

and

Speaker 3 33:58

you don't know about San Giovanni, it's not funny. Here's one of the stories in, from the book. Uh, Shenanigans Wake by James Juice. Now, it's kinda corny, but if when you read through this, if you don't know the Finnegans Wake story by James Joyce, it's not funny. If you don't know about Chenin Blanc, i- it's not funny. If you know about both of those things-

Speaker 4 34:24

It's very

Speaker 3 34:25

funny oh, yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's- I like it. But anyway, the book is great. A- oh, he, and the poetry is really good, too.

Speaker 34:32

Uh, what, here's what I'll tell you. If you're not smart, don't buy the book. Okay?

Speaker 3 34:36

No, no. I think if you're not smart, buy the book and sit by your computer, and you'll be smarter at the end of it. But it might take you a while. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the hour with The Restaurant Guys. I know that we certainly have. I'm Francis Schaet.

Speaker 34:46

And I'm Marc Murcko.

Speaker 3 34:47

We are The Restaurant Guys