If it is possible for anyone to be both icon and iconoclast, Grahm accomplished that. He launched Bonny Doon in 1981 hoping to make pinot noir in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. But he quickly turned to Rhone varieties such as grenache and syrah. He named his flagship red blend Le Cigare Volant, after a 1954 ordinance passed by the famous wine town of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in southern France that banned “flying cigars” – UFOs – from landing in the vineyards. Wine Spectator featured him in Lone Ranger regalia on its cover in 1989 as “The Rhone Ranger,” helping launch a movement that still thrives today. He was one of the first U.S. winemakers to champion screw caps, even staging a lavish, if premature, news conference “funeral” for the cork. His literary newsletters delighted his fans with humorous jabs at “big wine” and the critics who rewarded higher alcohol with higher point scores, including a lengthy riff on Dante’s “Divine Comedy” called, “The Vinferno.” His collected writings were published in book form in 2009 as “Been Doon So Long” and won Grahm a James Beard Award.

He created the Big House line of wines, which offered high quality at prices almost impossibly modest for California, but sold it in 2006 because he didn’t want to become the type of “big wine” corporation he loathed. He also created Pacific Rim Riesling, with innovative labeling you read through the wine in the bottle, and built that into a successful brand before selling it in 2011. Bonny Doon’s Vin Gris de Cigare was a hit rosé before rosé became a craze. He was also among the first – and still very few – to advocate ingredient labeling on wines.

Grahm’s creativity and restlessness didn’t always work in his favor. He acknowledges impatience with “the business side of the business,” adding, “spreadsheets give me a headache.” In a conversation I had with him late last year, he tended to begin his answers with “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time . . . ” He grew Bonny Doon to 40,000 cases, not large by California standards, but he had so many different wines it was often hard to keep up. The market couldn’t keep up, either, and ultimately it moved on.

Bonny Doon’s new owner is WarRoom Ventures, the parent company of Lapis Luna Wines in Santa Margarita, Calif. The price was not disclosed. Grahm will remain with the company as a partner and “guarantor of gravitas.” Bonny Doon’s production manager, Nicole Walsh, will continue to oversee wine production. Grahm remains owner of Popelouchum, a vineyard in San Juan Bautista, where he is attempting to breed new grape varieties suited to California’s soils and climate.

While Grahm tried to succeed with Bonny Doon in both traditional distribution and direct-to-consumer sales, he said those two paths are increasingly difficult to navigate, because they value opposite attributes.

“There has been a greater consolidation of the wholesale channel, with mid-sized fine wine distributors – those ideally suited to sell Bonny Doon wines – becoming an endangered species vulnerable to either acquisition or non-viability,” Grahm explained to me in an email after the sale was announced. His “eclectic experimentation” was “anathema” to wholesalers, who favor “ubiquity, simplicity, availability,” he said.

WarRoom Ventures was founded in 2018 to “focus on great value wines with branding that evokes emotion,” company president Andrew Nelson said in the statement announcing the partnership with Bonny Doon. The company’s website features three brands: Lapis Luna and Wildlife Wine, both with vibrantly colored labels, and a rosé wine seltzer called Bubble Butt.

WarRoom “has taken the wise course of focusing on wholesale” to grow the Bonny Doon brand, Grahm said. That will come at a price. The new focus will have only four wines: Le Cigare Volant and Le Cigare Blanc, a vermentino-based white, the popular Vin Gris de Cigare, and another white from the picpoul grape. Familiar labels like Old Telegram, Clos de Gilroy and Cardinal Zin will no longer be produced.

That sounds a bit like the strategy that made Big House wines a success before Grahm turned away from it, as well as a line from the opening of “The Vinferno,” as his narrator begins the descent into the nine circles of vinous hell.

“The vast portfolio of labels, brands, had once seemed all to the good . . . ”

– – –

The world of wine lost two French giants in January. Georges Duboeuf, the “king of Beaujolais,” died Jan. 4 at age 86. Duboeuf was a marketing genius who turned Beaujolais Nouveau, the barely fermented wine of the recent harvest, into a global party each November.

While Duboeuf popularized Beaujolais, Michel Lafarge created sublime burgundies that entranced many connoisseurs. Lafarge died Jan. 15 at age 91. He was a fifth-generation vigneron, based in Volnay, with small vineyards in other villages of the Cote de Beaune.

I get it. There’s a lot of paranoia and misinformation, including whether dish soap will ruin it (nope) and what type of fat to use to create the protective layer. Here are some tips to help you figure it all out:

– What it is. Seasoning is what happens when fats are heated to a certain point that causes them to reorganize into something resembling a plastic coating and bond to the metal. That coating is smooth and slick, allowing for foods to easily release from the pan. Cast iron is “the original nonstick cookware,” says Mark Kelly, the public relations manager at Lodge, the brand synonymous with cast-iron cookware.

Often, the fats come from oils, although depending on what you use, anything from bacon fat to shortening can contribute to seasoning. I like this explanation from cookbook author Anne Byrn, from her recently released “Skillet Love”: “Oil is the best friend to the skillet. It keeps it protected, impervious to any moisture that might cause it to rust. Think of oil on a skillet like moisturizer on your skin. . . . Heat plus oil builds the patina and makes your skillet naturally nonstick.”

Most of the cast iron you buy comes preseasoned. That means you can start cooking in it right away.

To see whether your pan is well-seasoned, Cook’s Illustrated recommends this test: Heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium heat in a skillet for 3 minutes and then fry an egg. If there’s no major sticking, your seasoning is good.

– It improves with age. If you’re afraid of cooking in cast iron because you don’t want to mess up the seasoning, that’s the exact wrong approach. The more you cook in cast iron, the more seasoning will build up. It takes time, though. “It’s a natural process,” Kelly says. “You need to be patient.”

If you’re wondering whether vintage or newer-produced cast iron is better in terms of seasoning, it depends. Older pieces that have been used a lot and well cared for will have a superb established seasoning. But those heirloom skillets (and also some newer boutique brands) tend to be smoother than Lodge’s current more pebbly-surfaced cast iron. According to Byrn, “Lodge attests that the seasoning on the pan has a better chance to get into the crevices and form its own barrier against water if the surface isn’t smooth as glass.” That’s not to say you can’t season a smoother skillet, but you should be aware of the potential differences if it takes longer.

– Maintain it. To maintain the seasoning, oil the pan after each use, returning it to the burner over medium-low heat after cleaning (see below) and then rubbing it down with oil and paper towels until it’s smooth and shiny with no visible residue. Kelly says you can do your coat of maintenance oil in a 200-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes, too. As for what type of oil to use, Byrn recommends the least saturated options, including canola, corn, soybean, sunflower and flaxseed. Cook’s Illustrated’s top pick is flaxseed, because it is faster at creating a more durable seasoning. Sunflower and soybean oil (Lodge uses soybean on its cookware) are good, affordable options. If you prefer to use lard, Burn cautions to wipe off any excess on the surface so it doesn’t go rancid in your cabinet.

Even if you’re short on time and can’t reheat the pan, at the very least wipe on a thin layer of oil before you put the pan away, buffing it until no greasy spots remain.

– Don’t be scared of ruining it. “A happy skillet is sitting at the back of the stove right now, cared for, talked about, needed,” Byrn writes. “But don’t get so obsessive about this process that you are fearful of using your skillet. There is a reason that iron skillets have survived the centuries. They withstand a little abuse but really appreciate being coddled, too.”

Some mild dish soap will not remove seasoning when cleaning. It’s also unlikely to be scratched or chipped off by metal utensils, since, as we’ve established, it’s chemically bonded to the cast iron. Moreover, contrary to what you may have been told, a well-seasoned pan can stand up to acidic foods such as tomato sauce, to a certain extent. To protect the seasoning and prevent metallic flavors in your food, Cook’s Illustrated recommends limiting the cook time for acidic foods to 30 minutes and then removing the food immediately. Serious Eats chief culinary adviser J. Kenji López-Alt also suggests staying away from cooking liquid-based dishes in cast iron until the seasoning is well-established.

– But if you do damage it, all is not lost. As Kelly likes to say, “Leave no cast iron behind.” If your pieces have been damaged or neglected, or you salvage some that have been roughed up, “you can always resurrect them.” There are a variety of strategies for stripping and reseasoning cast iron. Choose what works best for you. When it comes to addressing small patches of rust, Kelly recommends using steel wool to rub it down before proceeding with reseasoning. Lodge’s preferred method is to rub the seasoning oil or melted vegetable shortening all over the pan and let it bake on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for an hour, with a sheet of aluminum foil underneath to catch any drips. Repeat as necessary until the seasoning is where you want it to be. For her part, Byrn cranks the oven to 500 degrees, coats the skillet with a tablespoon of oil, wipes off the excess and bakes it upside down for an hour over foil.

If you have a truly abused skillet, you’ll need to start from scratch by stripping the seasoning and going through multiple rounds of restoring it. Again, strategies vary on how to strip seasoning, including using the self-cleaning feature of your oven. Cook’s Illustrated, though, prefers using a spray-on oven cleaner. For less intense situations, check out Lodge’s troubleshooting guide.

Led and conducted by Adrie Braat, Biggles Big Band consists of four trumpets, four trombones, five saxophones, guitar, piano, acoustic bass, drums and vocalist Marcel Fokker.

An extra string quartet consisting of two violins, viola and cello adds a sensational musical experience. Featured tunes from the orchestra’s amazing musical repertoire include some popular classics of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and jazz singers like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin – all recreated with their well-known contemporary styles.

The romantic evening will be accompanied by an international buffet spread featuring some of the world’s favourite dishes and delicious specialties.

Look forward to an array of seafood items; either on ice and on the grill, such as imported oyster, New Zealand mussel, rock lobster, as well as tiger prawn and many more, or enjoy a carving station, where a full rack of perfectly baked prime beef is served with some of your favourite sauces and condiments.

Butter-grilled scallops on the shell, scrumptious seafood linguine, and classic Steak Diane are among the highlights prepared à la minute by the culinary team while delicious Asian and Western specialties and other international dishes are also available to round off your meal.

Sweet treats include an assortment of special Valentine’s Day desserts like strawberry cheesecake, mini-raspberry financiers, white chocolate and berry cake and chocolate éclair.