I became a winemaker and winery owner some thirty years before, it seems, everyone else on this planet decided that they wanted to be one, too. Setting aside my lack of enthusiasm for this sudden sharpening of competition, I found it quite easy to attribute less noble motives to these newcomers than those that seem to guide me, though it is not impossible that they are simply more honest with themselves than I am when discussing the true motives for their actions.

I was a bit too young to fully experience the 60s with all their quixotic, neuro-expansive dreams, and perhaps that is just as well. But even in the early 70s, the air still carried a strong enough scent of the hippies' favourite patchouli oil (and God knows what else) to perfume my outlook on life with a healthy scepticism towards every recommended professional career path, and to germinate in me a certain naive optimism that, somehow, everything would fall into place even without a plan. (In our current era, such faith sounds like a prehistoric atavism.) I had studied philosophy and literature (and taken an introductory course in medicine) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, but I had no plans for the future, and I was in no hurry to get my degree; my attitude drove my parents completely mad, which, of course, was an added bonus.

It is difficult for me now to understand how I could have simply gone with the flow back then, but for several years, I really was just coasting through life. I worked for a year at my father's wholesale company for tools and other goods. (I helped create the company's product catalogue and did other odd jobs, too.) The only conviction I arrived at was that my father's business—the buying and selling of consumer goods—was definitely not for me. Because how can one even get a kick out of selling things, or even just worrying about business transactions as such—even though that is precisely what seemed to get my father out of bed in the mornings.

Can winemaking become a special spiritual path or even a school for personal growth? At the beginning, the thought certainly never crossed my mind. It is hard to reconstruct exactly what I imagined the destination of my chosen path to be back then, but, like a true member of the 60s-70s generation, and furthermore in Northern California, within arm's reach of the Esalen Institute for personal growth, I had grown up in an environment where the idea of fully utilising human potential was deeply ingrained in our minds. We understood that we would all eventually have to find some kind of work, but we wanted work that had Meaning, ideally work that would provide much more than mere material security.

While working on my bachelor's thesis on the concept of Heidegger's Dasein (alas, it was never completed), I wandered into a rather elegant wine shop a few blocks from my parents' home in Beverly Hills, where I was living at the time. “Would you like to open a credit account with us?” I was asked during my first visit to the shop. (I hadn't even reached the legal drinking age yet.) I honestly do not know how a young person looking for something that vaguely corresponded to their idea of the adult world, if not sophistication, could have refused such an offer. Wine was not particularly appreciated in my family, and perhaps partly for that reason, I agreed. I felt as if I were being offered to embark on an intriguing journey into a completely different dimension of experience.

The credit account soon led me to a temporary job at the shop (my thesis was already hopelessly stalled) and then to a permanent position, if not a complete immersion in wine—in other words, the opportunity to taste the world's best wines almost day in, day out. In a relatively short time, I transformed into a full-blooded, insufferable wine person. When I quit my job at the shop a year later, I toyed with the idea of starting my own wine business, perhaps as an importer. However, I happened to take a weekend course on home winemaking at the University of California, Los Angeles branch, and soon after, clarity suddenly dawned on me. I remember saying to myself: “Randall, you have very diverse interests and talents; perhaps you can call yourself an ‘eclectic’.” (The same could be said differently: “You seem like a reasonably bright guy, but your attention span is like that of a fruit fly.”) I have never been particularly wise in my specific life and/or business choices, but in this case, a ⟦daimon⟧ was clearly whispering in my ear: “R. G., listen carefully now. Train to be a winemaker! It will help you stitch together the different elements of your persona and give your life a purpose, which, frankly speaking, between us, you have been lacking a bit so far.” At that time, I did not think of myself as a potential artist, or even a craftsman; I just wanted to find some organising principle for my life, or perhaps just a source of income.

Eventually, I did manage to finish the University of California, Davis, and with the help of my family, I bought a plot of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains to create a premium American ⟦Pinot noir⟧ wine. This project was a spectacular failure, but I was lucky enough to discover the wines of Southern France. I didn't know it then, but turning to Rhone grape varieties in the early 80s meant a great leap of imagination. Almost no one in California knew anything about them. The blend of the right grapes was an accidental masterpiece from both a vinification and a marketing perspective; it seemed I was able to intuitively sense the banal fundamental truth of winemaking: if you work with grape varieties that are far from perfect individually, perhaps you can find or create perfection in a skilful blend, thereby nimbly masking the flaws of the individual components.

I am circling here around a theme I truly wish to explore in this essay: my successful choice of ⟦métier⟧ somehow triggered a chain of events that allowed me to discover something akin to an artist within myself, or at least unleashed a spirit of creation and intuition that had been completely latent in me until then. I am not claiming that winemaking itself makes those who engage in it more creative, but the work of a winemaker—the alchemical transformation of relatively simple material into something perhaps even sublime—carries a powerful metaphorical message: if you can turn grape juice into good wine, perhaps you can turn yourself into something, too.

Winemakers often have to do things that are quite removed from one another, they have to use very diverse skills—if not at the same moment, then certainly within the span of an hour or a day; we have to become ⟦bricoleurs par excellence⟧; I think this circumstance can make us better problem solvers and unleash a creative spark in other areas. (At least that seems to have happened to me.) A creative approach to problem-solving is also stimulated by the fact that we are small entrepreneurs—if one takes into account the soul-searching that such a status inevitably demands of us. If contemplative observation of the gallows concentrates the mind, as Dr Johnson believed, then contemplative reflection on the bankruptcy of one's own business allows the owner to discover hidden resources—in my case, a sense of humour and artistic design, both in the visual and organoleptic spheres, and even a kind of literary talent, the existence of which I had no inkling of until then.

Dubbed the “Rhone Ranger”, I became known in wine business circles as an enthusiast of Rhone-style wines—at a time when such a category was practically unknown in the USA. Since I had no prior knowledge of marketing but had an allergy to ordinary trading, I realised that I, like some palaeolithic hominid, would have to create my own tools ⟦de novo⟧ in order to take down the hairy mammoth of the booming wine business. I worked (intuitively) from basic principles: I knew I had to provide some context or reference point for this first New World Rhone blend, which later became known as “Le Cigare Volant” and was a kind of tribute to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. To my surprise (and good fortune), I discovered that in 1954, the city council of Châteauneuf-du-Pape had passed a truly bizarre ordinance that prohibited flying saucers and “flying cigars” from landing in its territory. By including an indirect reference to this ordinance on the label, I was able to contextualise this wine for the uninitiated, while at the same time avoiding the risk of the wine looking like a completely French copy of a French wine, and furthermore offering a somewhat ironic commentary on the whole affair. Somehow, I had intuitively grasped the fundamental truths of marketing.

Thus I accidentally discovered that wine lovers who also enjoy reading are able to appreciate a dryly ironic and slightly subversive attitude towards wine advertising. Since I had a complete allergy to the “art of the deal” or even to the yokel-like praising of the unique qualities of one's own product, I was forced to seek other ways to attract customers and develop something akin to a value proposition. To my surprise, I found that with a little practice, I was quite good at literary pastiches that offered a wine-lover's perspective on the prose of authors like Gabriel García Márquez, Kafka, Shakespeare, Poe, Pynchon, Salinger, and others. These parodic works were not some great supersatire, yet they allowed me to feel that I was swimming in clear water, far from my competitors, and encouraged me to seek out ever-new creative endeavours.

I have never considered that I possessed any innate sense of beauty, but I was lucky enough to work with the brilliant label designer Chuck House, who undoubtedly did and still does; thanks to him, I gained the confidence that I could trust my own sense. Together we created many memorable labels, and what's more, this process gave us many fun moments. Perhaps Malcolm Gladwell is right that mastery largely comes from repetition; speaking for myself, I would not use the word “mastery”, but rather “marginal competence”. I have an artist's brain—but only half of one. I am an absolute zero at drawing and painting, yet from time to time, rather original graphic design ideas occur to me, and I can usually tell whether a specific design will work or not. When I am lucky enough to meet a true artist, sometimes some kind of aesthetic wholeness and magic is born from this collaboration.

The winemaker's path has not turned me into a true artist (although it has provided a multitude of opportunities for the cultivation of artistic or at least aesthetic sensibilities), not even into a true craftsman, although I have hopes that it may still happen. (It has allowed me to hone my marketing technique, whatever that may be.) But just as the unwillingness to settle for the status of a simple wine enjoyer had urged me to transition to a deeper level and become a winemaker, so too in recent years have I begun to feel that I am no longer satisfied with being a simple technician winemaker (with some marketing skills), but not yet a craftsman.

I have already mentioned that I am a child of the 60s, flesh of my generation's flesh, a seeker of meaning, even if not always sure where exactly it is to be found. In the world of wine, I have gained a certain professional fame, although, if we are being frank, what I have done so far has a rather fleeting significance in the overall order of things. Nevertheless, I have learned to appreciate that along with this ⟦métier⟧, I have received a very special gift—a colour palette with which I can creatively express myself. However, I would like to add that learning to express oneself—that is not yet success; success, in all likelihood, lies in the determination to express something that is much larger than one's own personal vision.

In Santa Cruz, where I live, people never truly grow up. For many long years now, it seems I have been stuck in Kierkegaard's “aesthetic” phase of existence. As a winemaker, this has meant the opportunity to create many interesting wine labels, concoct a few interesting blends, experiment with new and exotic grape varieties and some unusual wine styles; all of this could at best be perceived as a form of performance art, but at worst as dilettantism. In recent years, perhaps I have gradually slipped into Kierkegaard's “ethical” phase of existence; our company recently switched to a practice of transparency on wine labels, that is, we now scrupulously list all the ingredients that come into contact with the wine during its production process. Furthermore, I am firmly committed to sticking to the principles of sustainable viticulture, using as few external resources as possible on my farm, and have set myself the high goal of growing grapes without artificial irrigation—for example, near the town of San Juan Bautista, which is very, very dry.

Perhaps because I myself have had such a prolonged adolescence, I have only recently begun to wonder what Kierkegaard's “religious phase” might look like for a winemaker. Perhaps the holiest sacrament of this church is a clod of earth—at least one that is full of microscopic life. Perhaps I will be given the rare privilege that is granted only to true craftsmen in the highest sense of the word: the ability to turn the humblest form of matter—the earth and a few bunches of grapes—into a sublime elixir that can bring people closer to poetry and other surprisingly great works.

I am currently working on a new viticultural project that reaches into an unknown and uncertain future and offers a rather unusual methodology—creating new grape varieties from seeds and planting a genetically diverse vineyard, erasing the characteristic features of individual varieties. I am guided by the assumption that the character of the soil can be expressed in wine made from grapes grown in this way, and that through this, I will succeed in catching that very elusive beast called ⟦vin de terroir⟧. Perhaps this feverish plan is just a dreamer's fantasy, but behind it lies a desire to return to the vineyard, where I could somehow learn to “see” and then, even if only partially, rise above my dreamer's nature. What could go wrong? Possibly everything. But I have a feeling as if I am at the very starting point of my career, connected (at least that is how I imagine it) to something much larger than myself.

Winemaking is largely a service to one's ego—you want people to know how clever you are. Artists (or craftsmen) are often true egomaniacs; to them, art is a drug that excites them, but it also allows them to rise, if only a little, above their baser impulses; it transforms everyone it touches. I am not saying that I will be able to escape the prison of my ego, but finally I feel satisfaction that some of what I am currently doing might perhaps bring some benefit outside the borders of my solipsistic world. And provided I play this game of cards correctly, I will at least spend more time outdoors and breathe healthy, fresh air.
beendoonsolong.com, 21 April 2015