Bonny Doon Vineyard Sells Big House And Cardinal Zin Brands

Randall Grahm, owner of Bonny Doon Vineyard, announced July 31 that he has sold two of his leading wine brands to The Wine Group LLC, a management-owned wine company based in San Francisco. The Big House and Cardinal Zin brands will be handled by The Wine Group’s newly formed division, Underdog Wine Merchants.

The sale of Big House and Cardinal Zin to The Wine Group includes the brand names, inventories, grape supply contracts and key brand icons. The purchase price was not disclosed.

„We were pretty stretched to grow the Big House brand as vigorously as we did,“ Grahm told Wines & Vines. „It sucked up the greater part of our cash, time and psychic energy, leaving inadequate resources to pursue other aspects of the business that have become personally more compelling to me, namely the creation of something like true vins de terroir. More significantly, I have in recent years become a convert to biodynamic farming and the reality was that the brands, especially Big House, were far too big and far too well established to contemplate a feasible transition to biodynamic farming in the foreseeable future… I am truly looking forward to working again on the smaller canvas.“

Le Cigare Volant, along with other well-known wines Grahm has created over the years, will continue to be owned, produced and sold by Bonny Doon. The company’s Pacific Rim brand will relocate its production to the state of Washington and will within a year’s time, function as an autonomous entity with a sales and management organization distinct from that of Bonny Doon Vineyard. The company plans to drop its Framboise Infusion of Raspberry, Malvasia Bianca and a few other small-production wines. The remaining Bonny Doon Vineyard brands will produce roughly 40,000 cases annually, according to senior creative director John Locke, who estimated last year’s production for all brands at 365,000 cases.

Underdog Wine Merchants will add Big House and Cardinal Zin brands to its emerging line of „fun“ brands aimed at young adults, such as Pinot Evil, Tempra Tantrum, Killer Juice and Herding Cats.

Source: winesandvines.com