SOME FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BONNY DOON QUERRY:
What is in this cider?
Apple, pear, and quince.
What is a quince?
It’s like an antelope.
No it’s not. You’re being silly. Now seriously, what is a quince?
It’s the expression on your face when you ask a question while wincing.
You don’t know what a quince is, do you?
Of course we do. We know all about quince. We know a ton about it. Or them. Whichever.
So why don’t you just come out and explain quince to us?
We’re trying to protect your feelings.
It’s okay not to know things. There’s no shame in that.
Psh. Why would we be ashamed? We know what a quince … are?
It’s a fruit.
Uh, DUH.
2013 ¿Querry? Pear Apple Quince Cider 750ml 6-Pack
Querry? A Getrunkenexperiment. What might a blend of apple, pear, and quince taste like naturally fermented (with indigenous yeast)? Result (not surprisingly): The heady suggestion of pineapple quince (we milled the quince and suspended the fruit in muslin bags, as if it were a tisane of quince); the pungent, dusky perfume of pear; and the earthy succulence of apple. This cider was fermented at an extremely cold temperature.) I never thought I’d see... a pome as lovely as Quer-ree. Crisp in acidity and just off-dry with an unmistakable quinciness, Querry is the perfect accompaniment to, well, essentially everything. It is composed of virtually everything, but most significantly: 62% pear, 36% apple, 2% quince, malic acid, and sulfur dioxide.
“Peariodic Table of Pome Fruits” Poster, signed by Randall Grahm
A colorful Peariodic Table of Pome Fruit Poster, signed by Owner Randall Grahm.
Tasting Notes: Excellent with charcuterie, Asian food, (especially sushi), seafood, poultry and a well-selected cheese course—fare as humble as meat pie or as elegant as lobster. Querry pears with virtually everything.
Tasting Notes: Excellent with charcuterie, Asian food, (especially sushi), seafood, poultry and a well-selected cheese course—fare as humble as meat pie or as elegant as lobster. Querry pears with virtually everything.
While Bonny Doon Vineyard began with the (in retrospect) foolish attempt to replicate Burgundy in California, Randall Grahm realized early on that he would have far more success creating more distinctive and original wines working with Rhône varieties in the Central Coast of California. The key learning here (achieved somewhat accidentally but fortuitously) was that in a warm, Mediterranean climate, it is usually blended wines that are most successful. In 1986 Bonny Doon Vineyard released the inaugural vintage (1984) of Le Cigare Volant, an homage to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and this continues as the winery’s flagship/starship brand.
Since then, Bonny Doon Vineyard has enjoyed a long history of innovation – the first to truly popularize Rhône grapes in California, to successfully work with cryo-extraction for sundry “Vins de Glacière, the first to utilize microbullage in California, the first to popularize screwcaps for premium wines, and, quite significantly, the first to embrace true transparency in labeling with its ingredient labeling initiative. The upside of all of this activity has brought an extraordinary amount of creativity and research to the California wine scene; the doon-side, as it were, was perhaps an ever so slight inability to focus, to settle doon, if you will, into a single, coherent direction.
Bonny Doon Vineyard grew and grew with some incredibly popular brands (Big House, Cardinal Zin and Pacific Rim) until it became the 28th largest winery in the United Stated. Randall came to the realization – better late than Nevers – that he had found that the company had diverged to a great extent from his original intention of producing soulful, distinctive and original wines, and that while it was amusing to be able to get restaurant reservations almost anywhere (the only real tangible perk he was able to discern from the vast scale of the operation), it was time to take a decisive course correction. With this in mind, he sold off the larger brands (Big House and Cardinal Zin) in 2006 and Pacific Rim in 2010.
In the intervening years, the focus of the winery has been to spend far more time working with vineyards in improving their practices, as well as on making wines with a much lighter touch – using indigenous yeast whenever possible, and more or less eschewing vinous maquillage, (at least not to Tammy Faye Bakker-like levels). Recently, Randall has purchased an extraordinary property in San Juan Bautista, which he calls Popelouchum, (the Mutsun word for “paradise,”) where he is profoundly intent on producing singular wines expressive of place. There are also very grand plans afoot to plant a dry-farmed Estate Cigare vineyard. #staydooned.
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