The Bonny Doon Tasting Room
WinoTripper's review of the new Bonny Doon tasting room in Santa Cruz
Miss Melody and I ventured down to Santa Cruz to party at the brand new Bonny Doon tasting room for their annual Day Of The Doon event. We've been blogging about how this new complex on Ingalls street on the west side of Santa Cruz is shaping up to be the new mecca for wine tasting in Santa Cruz... and now the big gun has arrived.
The new tasting room, The Cellar Door, is pretty awesome. Located at the NorthEast corner of the parking lot in an old warehouse space, Bonny Doon's The Cellar Door is one of four wineries that have opened tasting rooms in this new, hot location. Also on site: Kelly's French Bakery, the Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery, New Leaf supermarket, several small shops, as well as the three other winery tasting rooms.
From the outside it still looks like a warehouse, but the interior is gorgeous, smartly designed, and hip. The interior walls are done with dark wooden planks, and the huge space is divided up into smaller "rooms" separated by the tall fermentation tanks that sit in the center. There are tables set in to this area, like you're actually inside a big wooden holding tank, and these "pods" are where they host the private tastings, (see photo).
Just behind the main tasting bar, facing out toward Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company, is a little lounge with tables and chairs.
I overheard one guest describe the new tasting room as, "a little fancy pants", and that may be true compared to the quaint shack on the mountain in Donny Doon... but I was very impressed. The more I explored, the more great details I found, like the hanging lamps made from wine bottles.
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Obviously, these guys are total ufo nuts - Cigare Volant = Flying Cigars!
I remeber the Boony Doon tasing garden/room outside of Templeton. Everyone from Paso to Atascadero wondered what cralled up their ass to make their noeses so high.
Dramman: I remember that joint, too... with the goats, and the nursery, &c...
There is lots of mystery surrounding the fire that burnt through the tasting room, which led to it's permanent closure. I never got the full story... but your comments certainly make me want to re-examine that scene. I'd love to hear more about what you know.
It's true that Randall Grahm has a cult-like following, particularly with those who work at Bonny Doon... but I always saw it as a mock-worship, with a tongue in cheek. Also, in those days, DEWN was known to do things somewhat non-traditionally, particularly on the business side, so perhaps some of the ill-will in the Paso Robles area stems from that?
All I know is that whenever we hit the joint, we have a pretty good time. And the new tasting room in Santa Cruz is handsome. Perhaps keeping the crazy Santa Cruz style in Santa Cruz, and away from Paso Robles, is the ticket?
Well I should hasten to add that when I was "tripping" around the area it was 15 years ago. Never heard about the fire, but yeah it had goats. Stanford does it better down the coast.
As far as discord in Paso, it was really two diffrent styles, and Bonny's marketing operation. While not the first person to come to Paso to open a winery, it was the first "Napa style" place. If you did not know wine well, you just don't deserve Bonny Doone. That contrasted starkly with, say Tobin James, where Tobin was wondering around serving his famous Zin to anybody tooling by in a car on Hwy 46, Seven Oak's open by apointment and great embarassment to taste their great Cab, or cheesy disney-esqe of the Masantunoto (sp?) chateau.
Exactly my point. 15 years ago was a different game in Paso... before the wino tourism really hit big. DEWN was a big fish in a little pond, but still far from the huge scale of a Napa sytle joint. Big money in relation to the tasting rooms scene in Paso back then, while still rather small compared to the likes of Mondavi in Napa.
But I do suspect that the resentment the locals felt had something to do with the fire...