Wines & Vines

42 WINES&VINES Collector's Edition COLLECTOR'S EDITION retired in 2003. In addition to the Davis degree, her "firsts" include being the first woman wine- maker of the modern era in California and the first woman on the board of directors of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. In addition, she was a charter member of the California Enological Research Association. Randall Grahm An innovator par excellence The desire to make the great American Pinot Noir is what prompted Randall Grahm to found Bonny Doon Vineyard in California's Santa Cruz Mountains in 1981. When his efforts fell flat, he turned to Rhône grape varieties, cre- ated his flagship Le Cigare Volant red blend and gained a reputation as one of California's original Rhône Rangers. Although Grahm was making serious wines, he became even better known as a master marketer: In addition to Le Cigare Volant (French for "flying cigar"), he created playful labels like Cardinal Zin and Big House (the latter was a reference to his vine- yard location near a prison). Grahm was an early adopter of alternative closures — first, synthetic corks and, later, screwcaps — and once famously staged a mock funeral for the cork. He also was an early proponent of ingre- dient labeling. Grahm's innovations extend beyond mar- keting and packaging. Although he primarily practices a non-interventionist style of wine- making now, he was an early proponent of micro-oxygenation. In the vineyard, Grahm has been an enthusiastic practitioner of biody- namic viticulture. He has downsized his opera- tions in recent years, selling some of his popular labels to concentrate on his estate in San Benito County, called Popelouchum, where he's planting a number of obscure grape variet- ies as part of perhaps his biggest innovation yet: an ambitious project to breed 10,000 new grape varieties by crossing existing ones and planting the seeds that result. Granholm v. Heald Supreme Court opened door for direct-to-consumer shipping On May 16, 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion in the case of Granholm v. Heald that significantly altered the way state laws are created and challenged. Jeff Carroll, writing about the decision in the June 2010 issue of Wines & Vines, stated, "By conclud- ing that the states of Michigan and New York could not discriminate by allowing in-state win- eries to ship directly to consumers while pro- hibiting out-of-state wineries from doing the same, the court affirmed that the 'dormant' part of the Commerce Clause trumps the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. In other words, states have every ability to regulate alcoholic beverages within their borders, but only if the laws treat in-state and out-of-state suppliers evenhandedly." After the decision, step by step and state by state the Wine Institute and other advocates for interstate shipping, such as the Free the Grapes Coalition, broke down local wholesalers' and legislators' resistance and opened their markets to wineries. Today, direct- to-consumer shipping is a $2.9 billion business, according to Wines Vines Analytics and Ship- Compliant by Sovos, and only seven states have not dropped their shipping barriers. Harvest Bins Small containers kept grapes from juicing in the field As late as the 1980s, even premium wineries used 2-ton capacity containers called valley bins or gondolas pulled behind tractors to haul grapes from the vineyard to the crush pad. Wooden lug boxes had given way to plas- tic 40-lb. capacity lug boxes for harvesting directly into, but they were rarely stacked on a trailer and taken to the winery. Grape E. & J. Gallo Winery Biggest winery taught the industry how to be competitive The Gallo organization's penchant for efficiency in production and fierce competitiveness in sales and marketing is legendary in the wine industry. Started by brothers Ernest Gallo (1909-2007) and Julio Gallo (1910-1993) just as Prohibition ended in 1933, the E. & J. Gallo Winery grew to be the world's largest wine producer while producing primarily inexpensive forti- fied wines sourced from mostly Central Valley vineyards in the early decades. Beginning in the 1980s and con- tinuing today, Gallo transitioned toward premium- priced wines from coastal vineyards. Gallo has been a prolific brand creator and market opportunist, not usually the first to popularize a varietal or style, but often the first to turn that niche into a big category. One of Gallo's game-changing roles in the wine industry was to meticulously train winemaking and marketing people who would later disperse to various other com- panies and improve the competitiveness of the U.S. wine sector as a whole. Ernest Gallo (left) and Julio Gallo in Modesto circa 1960.

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