This is Popelouchum. A place where even the name wants you to stop and think. It’s pronounced if you were wondering (and of course you were) Pop-loh-shoom a name settled on by the Ohlone native Americans who were the original caretakers of the land that the grapes are now grown on.
It was unveiled as the name of Randall Grahm’s new estate in San Juan Bautista, California in 2011. The project itself started a few years earlier, when Grahm decided to sell off his high profile brands Cardinal Zin, Pacific Rim and Big House to focus on the more terroir-driven Bonny Doon (saying ‘wines of place are the only ones that matter’).
With the proceeds of the sale, he bought a 113 hectare site in San Benito Country and set about, with classic Grahm understatement, to create a New World Grand Cru, and to ‘outsmart climate change’ while he was at it.
