THE LANGUAGE OF YES

OVERVIEW

The Language of Yes began in earnest in 2020 as a collaboration between Randall Grahm and Maze Row, giving the auteur winemaker his pick of Gallo’s top vineyards in the Central Coast, as well as access to the company’s significant grape and vine research.

The aim of the project is to bring an Old World sensibility to California, with gentler extractions, whole cluster fermentations where possible, no filtration, and a focus on Rhone varieties from cooler sites. Indeed, the first wine released for The Language of Yes was a Tibouren-based rosé, a variety native to Southern France and Northern Italy, prized for its creamy texture and ageworthiness.

The inaugural 2020 vintage also featured separate bottlings of Grenache and Syrah from the Rancho Réal vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley AVA. Both wines are clearly informed by a love of the Old World, but not without respect for New World terroir. Or, as Randall puts it: “Searching for elegance in a rustic universe.”

HISTORY

California winemaking legend. Marketing maverick. Outspoken proponent of balanced, elegant wines at the peak of “Parker-ization.” Randall Grahm is frequently described as “quixotic,” but it’s this author’s opinion that his work was never quixotic, just ahead of its time.

From Randall’s bio: Randall was born in Los Angeles in 1953 and attended the University of California, Santa Cruz where he was a semi-permanent Liberal Arts major. Some time later he found work in a fancy wine shop in Beverly Hills sweeping floors. But by dint of exceptionally good karma he was given the opportunity to taste great French wines; this singular experience turned him into a complete and insufferable wine fanatic.

Randall returned to UC Davis to finish a degree in Plant Sciences in 1979, where, owing to his single-minded reverence for Pinot Noir, he was regarded as a bit of a holy terroir in the hallowed halls of the otherwise sober and sedate Department of Viticulture and Enology. With his family’s assistance, he purchased property in the Santa Cruz Mountains in a quaint eponymous hamlet known as Bonny Doon, intent on producing the Great American Pinot Noir. The GAPN proved to be systematically elusive but he was greatly encouraged by experimental batches of Rhône varieties he produced there, and he has been a tireless champion of the grapes of the Rhône since the inaugural vintage of [Bonny Doon’s] Le Cigare Volant. In 1989 Randall appeared on the cover of the Wine Spectator, clad in blue polyester, as “The Rhône Ranger.”

In 1991 Randall was inducted into the Who’s Who of Cooking in America by Cook’s Magazine and in the same year had an asteroid named in his honor. He was proclaimed the Wine and Spirits Professional of the Year by the James Beard Foundation in1994 and received another award from the Beard Foundation for his book, “Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology” in 2009. In 2010 the Culinary Institute of America inducted him into the Vintner’s Hall of Fame.

In 2010, Randall purchased an extraordinary 400-acre property near San Juan Bautista, which he calls “Popelouchum,” (pronounced Pope-uh-luh-SHOOM), and has very ambitious plans to breed 10,000 new grape varieties there and perhaps produce a true vin de terroir in the New World. He sold his majority interest in Bonny Doon Vineyard at year-end of 2019.

The Language of Yes project, initiated with the 2020 vintage, captures Randall’s passion for exploring the possibilities of both the classical and more arcane varieties of southern France in the Central Coast of California. Randall continues to live in Santa Cruz with his muse Chinshu, their daughter, Amélie, and his thesaurus.

– Randall Grahm.