Best guest you have had on. I would love to hear more from him.

QOTD: I really had not previously formulated an opinion about Bonny Doon, but I am now impressed at the approach taken there.

Gary, Everyone has told you the same thing. This guy was very interesting and intelligent…you ruined it. You need to improve your interviewing skills. You are SOOO A.D.D it’s sick. I am also A.D.D. so I can see the symptoms. And get the Bottles offf the guests face. You covered him up, and made sure we could all see your face clearly. You don’t have to fill any silence with talk EVERY second of the interview….slow way down brother.

I thought the add in the WS was very good. I have not opinion about bonny doon, i’ve never tried one. I will be on the lookout…AMM

Scratch “add”, replace with “AD”

QOTD : I know nothing about Bonny Doon
Now – it has already been said, but before I saw that, I was going to say it, so I will anyway – you have to stop talking over the top of your guests. It is your show, but we want to know about the guest, not you – I mean this in the most sincerely constructive way – I still love the show.

Loved this show – found the whole 50-60mins very interesting.

QOTD: hadn’t heard of Bonny Doon until about a year ago (unless you count the place in Australia that is quoted in The Castle movie) – but I think the names and labels are very well done, both from a marketing and design point of view.. great stuff. Have only tried 2 of their wines, but definitely want to try the Cigare Volante and the Bien Nacido Syrah.

Great Episode. Really haven’t had any Bonny Doon outside of the pacific rim label. I will look for some to try going forward.

When I first got to know of Bonny Doon I thought of it as a mass produced commercial wine. However I have since read things like Food and Wine magazine and herd Gary talk about the wine and I have come to know more about it. I think that it is easy to loose sight of the winemaker and how much they care by just buying the wine from a store. I do however get that your about making a difference and not seek out your wine. Cheers

Randall Graham is amazing. As a long time member of DEWN (wine club), I don’t see a lot of “changes” in Bonny Doon – but it’s been a while since I purchased retail bottles (except for Cigar Volante, of course).

I truly enjoyed seeing Randall Graham, I think he is one of the most important people in wine today – adventure means everything.

Gary – thanks for having him on but I really think you should let your guests talk without constant interuptions. I agree with so many of your theories (see-saw of the palate) but let’s leave it for shows where you aren’t talking to the Zen master of wine making. I would have liked to hear his opinions on these things.
Cheers ~ Beth

Great episode…Part II.

Really Really Really Really good show 🙂

Enjoy Baja, its a really beautiful place

Carlos H Cohen
Mexico city

I’m way behind on my shows. The Bonny Doon episodes were awesome, in my top 5 (I just started making that up, I don’t know what my other 3 shows are yet).

So many good quotes in this ep. “People who think of oak as a primary flavor in wine are the same ones who think of ketchup as a vegetable.” Oh man, was that a good one! Completely agree. “…like I bit a deer’s ass.” Ahhh, GV you never disappoint.

This was such a good episode…I liked the two parter format. It was great that you let Grahm take his time to answer and talk about different issues in the wine world. It was so funny seeing the difference between the East and West Coasters too.

QOTD: I don’t think I’ve ever had one, but seeing how large the brand is, it wouldn’t be surprising if I had.

Good stuff!

To echo the comments of several others. Please ask questions and then let the guest answer without interruption. Randall Graham is extremely intelligent and a great winemaker who sounds educated when he speaks. The host uses the present cultural bombs “kind of” and “like” ad nauseum. As a winemaker myself I would love to have heard him speak about some of the parameters of wine making without being interrupted by an obnoxious east coast accent.

I had no idea what a transformation Bonny Doon had undergone. I was disenchanted with the wide array of labels and products produced by Bonny Doon. I had really avoided the Bonny Doon labels over the last few years in favor of much smaller producers. This show opened my eyes and convinced me to give a few of the Bonny Doon labeled wines a fresh taste.

Great show!

Randall, glad to hear of your new focus w/Bonny Doon; didn’t know about it.

Might even rejoin one of the clubs (I dropped out a few years ago).

All the wines you tasted w/Gary sound neat, and I will try them!

Gary, great show!

Randall’s wines are definitely unique, but not to my likening. Wines are meant to be enjoyed, savored with friends, and paired with foods. BD is too far left for me and are not delicious. Too weak and watery! I visited the tasting room in September and found the Beauregard Wines in the back parking lot much more to my likening. Good luck with your move to the big City. Stay off the MJ and focus more on the wines.

QOTD: Before the show I thought of a couple fairly cheap wines not knowing how the company had changed. I will certainly seek out that syrah as a re-introduction to Bonny Doon.

It has been a long while since my last BD wine. They always struck me as much too much concept and marketing – with very little attention paid to the quality of their wines. I knew nothing of the recent changes. Perhaps it is time to try one again.

GV – thanks for the opportunity to learn more about this legend of wine making.

Really interesting episode. Randall seems to be a caring and straightforward guy. You have to love and respect that. Great interview with him. Learned a lot about Bonny Doon that I had no idea about in the past. QOTD: Before this show I was unaware of your higher end wines. I had no idea about your biodynamic wines and such…. just the low end wines in the stores. Its nice to see the love and quality youre putting into your wines. Thanks for bringing these other wines to my attention.

Hey Gary,

I just want to tell you that this episode was good . I also would like to ask
you to watch a rerun of the show so that you can see how many times you are interrupting the guest. I am not a basher I think actually this is the best of the best when it comes to finding out information on wines from a younger person and also its great to sit down relax and drink a glass of wine while watching . I hope you understand I dont want you to take it offensive I just want you to take it into consideration.

Thanks,

great fun to watch this one again…
Had the good fortune to be at a dinner party with Mr. Grahm a couple of weeks ago, and just embedded video from that night, including his reading from his recent book.
http://www.vtwinemedia.com/vt_wine_press/?p=310

Usually can’t go wrong with fruit from Bien Nacido, love the bacon fat. QOTD-have not had enough to form an opionion. http://www.winelx.com

I realize this was recorded 5 years ago but, I hope to God GV has learned to STFU since then (and lay off the caffeine) when a guest, especially one of Randall’s caliber, is invited to an episode. I was hoping things would change for episode 2 with Randall, but it became painfully tiresome, annoying, and embarrassing to be honest, to have Randall continuously interrupted, and worse yet, to then have GV drone on about some tangent, then finally remember to shut up and get back to the interview.
2 things I live by:
– You can not learn anything new when you are doing the talking.
– A conversation between 2 people is NOT waiting for the other one to finish so you can say what you want to say (much less interrupting them constantly).