New experiment could revolutionize wine industry

UPDATE 9/30/15 4:30 p.m.: A local winemaker is embarking on a grape game changer by creating a new blend that’s unique to California. His plan could revolutionize the wine industry but it comes with some risk. Randall Grahm says he’s investing at least ten years of his time and around $170,000 from a crowdsourcing campaign. But if successful, the fruits of his labor, would be the first of its kind.

“I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m jazzed, I’m energized,” Grahm said. “This is either going to be a really good idea or a really bad idea. I don’t know which. But some of it will succeed for sure, some of it will be brilliant.”

Rows upon rows of grapes and other fruit cover parts of the 400-acre Popelouchum Estate in San Juan Bautista. One of them is Grenache. This drought tolerant variety is one of many varities growing there. It’s at the Popelouchum Estate where Grahm hopes to change the wine industry with a risky experiment.

“The first objective is to identify the unique varieties that do exceptionally well here at this estate in San Juan Bautista,” Grahm said. “And we’re doing this by breeding maybe 10,000 new varieties. And, this is not something one normally does. One normally calls up the nursery and says, “I’d like some Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot or Chardonnay and you hope for the best that your variety, or your clone of that variety will be particularly suited but you never know.”

Grahm is well-known in the wine industry for his Bonny Doon Vineyard, but it’s the San Juan Bautista vineyard that he calls an intersection of a number of different climatic and geological zones.

“The soils are really interesting,” Grahm said. “You’ve got beautiful volcanic soils, calcareous limestone soils, and granitic soils. A lot of these soils are what I would call, expressive, “terroir.” These are soils that can impart qualities to the wine, above and beyond the flavor of the grape. A unique fingerprint of the place where they are grown.”

Grahm also wants to identify varieties that could be used around the state, even around the world. Because the drought is becoming the new normal, these varieties would have to stand up to heat and diseases. He’s also mixing old and new techniques to be more efficient and sustainable, ranging from biodynamic practices to dry farming.

Now, he’s looking for the cream of the crop to create a uniquely complex wine made of many varieties.

“I love California wines but ultimately they don’t really address the question,” Grahm explains, “‘What can we uniquely do in California that can’t be done elsewhere. How do we avoid simply being an echo, or a copy of a European example? How do we do something that’s truly distinctive and unique?’ So I think that’s one of the things that struck a resonant chord.”

Grahm says he’s excited yet scared to see the outcome of his experiment, but it could take a decade, even a lifetime to see if it will work.

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A local winemaker is embarking on a grape experiment that could change the wine industry. Randall Grahm, owner of Bonny Doon Vineyards and proprietor of the Popelouchum Estate in San Juan Bautista is the brain child of it all. With the community’s help, he’s turning Popelouchum into a science lab.

He’s trying to grow some 10,000 new grape varieties with several goals in mind. The first, finding varieties that would be successful at the Estate. The second, identifying varieties that could be useful to other sites in California, possibly worldwide. Those varieties would have beneficial characteristics like being disease resistant and tolerant to drought and heat. The third, find something unique to California.

“I love California wines but ultimately they don’t really address the question,” Grahm explains, “‘What can we uniquely do in California that can’t be done elsewhere. How do we avoid simply being an echo, or a copy of a European example? How do we do something that’s truly distinctive and unique?’ So I think that’s one of the things that struck a resident chord.”

News Channel 5 will have more on this story tonight.