Wines of Terroir.
Popelouchum (pope-loh-SHOOM): a Mutsun word meaning paradise.
This 415 acre estate was purchased by Randall Grahm in 2011. Always a work in progress, Grahm is attempting what no vigneron has every attempted: to propogate 10,000 new grape varieties, from disease-resistant progenitors, with the aim of a) identifying one or more new “genius” grape varieties, and b) employing a radical new methodology for creating complexity in wine (the elucidation of terroir) by creating a highly diverse population in a vineyard (every variety being genetically distinct from the other).
Along with plantings of Pinot Noir, Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris are more uncommon ownrooted varietals of Picolit and Ruché. The long term vision being one of both simplicity and great complexity: a property which will produce wine of distinction, as well as a destination to host thinkers, leaders, contemporaries and wine enthusiasts - an epicenter of a new wine community.
If you have a theory about something, keep testing it and putting it to proof; it will probably need discarding eventually.
-Andrew Jefford
What is Popelouchum?
Popelouchum is a singularly compelling 410 acre property, located just outside the town of San Juan Bautista in San Benito County, California, directly abutting the San Andreas Fault. It is noteworthy for its unique geology and pedology, possessing no fewer than four distinctive, “strong” and unique soil types or more broadly, terroirs.[1] “Popelouchum'' is the name the indigenous Mutsun tribe of the San Juan Bautista area gave to their land; an alternative translation of the term is reported to be “Paradise” and that descriptor is particularly apt. Randall Grahm, founder of Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, purchased the property in 2012 with the intention of creating a mixed-use, sustainable/regenerative farm, focused on growing the most distinctive and expressive grapes suitable for production of true vins de terroir, or wines of place. He has successfully grown a number of perennial trees (olives, apples, pears, quince) and seasonal row crops as well on the site.
How does this project help the world?
For more or less the last 1500 years Vitis vinifera (European) vines have been propagated vegetatively, giving them scant opportunity to genetically alter and thus potentially adapt to changing growing conditions - to new disease and/or climatic pressure. The grape breeding project at Popelouchum consists of two approaches: the unorthodox practice of “self-crossing, [2] and the more traditional practice of breeding from disparate lineages with the intention of discovering/creating new and unique germplasm with salutary organoleptic and agronomic attributes. For the “traditional” breeding part of the project, we hope (rather quixotically) to create 10,000 new grape varieties, offering the wine industry a vast amount of new germplasm, useful both in identifying new and distinctive varieties, as well as serving as a strategy for producing a true and non-replicable vin de terroir. [3] Lastly, the mastery of dry-farmed or minimal irrigation cultivation of named grape varieties using innovative farming techniques will be an exemplary model of sustainable viticulture in California as resources (principally water) become increasingly constrained.
Our Grapes (for the moment) and What’s ahead?
Currently planted (and modestly producing) are the minimally irrigated, organically farmed grape varieties, Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Pinot Noir, Grenache Noir, Cinsault, Tibouren, Ruchè, and Furmint. Coming into production perhaps as soon as vintage 2025 (if the wild turkeys do not have their way with the tastiest bunches) we have a block of genetically diverse self-crossed white variants of Sérine as well as recent plantings of red variants of self-crossed Sérine, [3] as well as proper Sérine, Roussanne and Furmint. In development, we’re looking at Cornalin, Nebbiolo Rosé, Schioppettino, Rossese Bianco(!), Timorasso, Aligoté and of course our ambitious crosses of Ciliegiolo x Picolit.
What products will be produced and what makes them distinctive?
Varietal and blended wine from dry-farmed (or minimally irrigated) regeneratively farmed grapes, viz. proprietary clones of Grenache Noir, Cinsault, Sérine, Tibouren, Ruchè, Pignolo, Cornalin, Humagne Rouge, Nebbiolo Rosé as well as Grenache Blanc, Sagrantino, Completer, Ciliegiolo, Schioppettino, Grenache Gris, Roussanne, Furmint, Hárslevelū, Rossese Bianco, Timorasso, Aligoté doré, and Pinot Noir.) Yields of these vines will be intentionally limited, to insure greater intensity and distinctiveness.The unique use of biochar at Popelouchum amplifies the innate contribution of soil characteristics by fostering the prolific establishment of symbiotic soil biota. [4]
“Varietal auto-tuning” of selected varieties such as Sérine and Tibouren. Beginning with varieties already shown to be successful on-site, Randall has self-crossed those varieties in the hopes of identifying the most expressive and best adapted biotypes to the site, at the same time correcting some of the known compromising issues (chiefly virus-related) affecting the existing cultivars.[5] The selection of a discrete number of emergent biotypes will be propagated for further plantation. The other, possibly more interesting application of self-crossing is the opportunity to fashion a field blend of genetically heterodox biotypes, siblings from the same parent, each a little different from one another, a strategy may likely result in a level of vinous complexity that could not be achieved through any other means. We believe that the “best” clone of a given variety may in fact be a composite of multiple biotypes.[6]
The most ambitious part of the project is the “traditional” breeding of 10,000 new grape varieties. The selected “parents” of the breeding project are Ciliegiolo and Picolit. Each genetically heterodox block of grapes will be planted on three different “strong” terroirs, each approximately a 2.0 acre plot.[7] This unique strategy de-emphasizes varietal character, the better to allow the expression of emergent soil characteristics and the creation of viticultural complexity and nuance that could not be achieved any other way.
The through-line that links all of the wines produced at Popelouchum is that virtually all of them are being grown on a site that is in some sense at the very limit of their possibility.[8] San Juan Bautista receives relatively limited annual rainfall, and with our limited ability to irrigate, yields remain very modest. Further, the site is rather windy during the growing season and exceptionally cold at night. As a result, we’ve observed natural levels of acidity in our wine that are truly prodigious, obviating the need for heroic sulfur dioxide additions and presaging wines of great longevity. The wines are generally unadorned, sans maquillage, or “franc,” as the French would say.
[1] Grahm intends to petition for a unique, monopole AVA (American Viticultural Area) for the delimited area surrounding the farm property. Preliminary geological studies have been undertaken to that end.
[2] This approach was undertaken by the Librandi group in Calabria with the varieties, Gaglioppo and Magliocco, to great success. The quality of the resultant wine was substantially improved, while retaining the features of the varieties that made them congruent to the site in the first place.
[3] The creation of new germplasm carries with it the great possibility of Nature arriving at a solution to a problem that has vexed a human being. But, apart from the unalloyed agronomic benefit of new germplasm, the aesthetic frisson of a new and unique way to consider what a wine might be about - a change in Gestalt that considers the site itself to be the protagonist rather than the grapes that are grown thereof - is of incalculable benefit.
[4] "Pioneering Work on Biochar in European Vineyards" (International Biochar Initiative, 2018)
[5] Many viruses can debilitate grape varieties, but in the self-crossing process the virus is not transmitted to the progeny, and the particular debilitating issue (at least in some selections) will disappear in a couple of generations.
[6] We have successfully identified 65 white variants of self-crossed Sérine seedlings and have planted in 2023 approximately two acres of “mixed whites” reflecting that mix. Each variant is slightly different from the other; some are spicier/more peppery, others more floral. We have high hopes that this will produce a wine of unique complexity. A similar block of approximately 60 self-crossed red variants was planted in Winter 2024, alongside a block of “proper” Sérine.
[7] “A Vintners Quest to Create a Truly American Wine” (The New Yorker, 2018)