Pour on Randall Grahm

The New York Times devoted a lot of ink and photos to Eric Asimov's feature on Randall Grahm. According to my sources (OK, source) Asimov's reporting was dead on.  A friend of mine who worked for Bonny Doon in the mid-90s says Randall was a loveable and eccentric boss.  Generous, brilliant and easily bored.   She was a self-described "flunky" working in compliance, and his plethora of wines - at least 30 at the time, made her job complicated, to say the least.  She said he would develop a few wines that were really, really good. But then he would get bored. Thus the 30 wines.   I saw Grahm in action at a closure symposium at Copia last year. Yes, a closure symposium. Only in Napa, right?   Asimov's description of Randall as " an aging hippie who found a way to prolong graduate school indefinitely, at someone else’s expense" is apt. I think I described him as looking like your favorite philosophy professor, so same difference.  He is very articulate and a joy to listen to.  The other guys who spoke were marketing types, all PowerPoint and power suits.  Randall was the real thing - an eccentric, passionate, thoughtful genius.   Never mind his genius is for marketing.