Mack Mode: 064

Among the Rarities: An Afternoon with Randall Grahm and Popelouchum

Date: June 3rd
Location: Banville HQ, NYC

Earlier this week, I found myself in a quiet townhouse tucked behind trees in Manhattan’s Upper East Side for an intimate seminar hosted by the inimitable Randall Grahm. The occasion? A deep dive into the ever-evolving Popelouchum Estate and a tasting of rare gems from the Banville portfolio.

The room was small, deliberately so. There’s something about tasting wines in a space that feels less like a seminar and more like a salon. It invites questions. It rewards curiosity. And with Randall at the helm, curiosity is always the right move.

Randall Grahm doesn’t just make wine, he thinks wine. His Popelouchum project, a sprawling, deeply experimental estate in San Juan Bautista, CA, is more than a vineyard. It’s a philosophical exercise, a genetic sandbox, a living document of what California wine could be if it stopped chasing models and started writing its own.

But before I ever tasted a Randall Grahm wine, I saw him.