"The first time Randy Ullom laid eyes on California, he wasn't impressed. Born in Michigan and raised in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, he was accustomed to the lush, green landscapes of his youth. But California, which at the time had been enduring a five-year drought, was "dusty, brown and horrible." "I'd been offered a winemaking job at Buena Vista Winery and thought, 'why would anybody want to live in California?'" he said. "The earth looked dead. I just couldn't do it."
"On the contrary, he had spent his late teens and early twenties in Chile during the early 1970s, a time of intense political upheaval marked by a military coup and the rise of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Ullom, who'd braved the coup for a chance to ski in the Andes, was disappointed to learn his skiing would have to wait - not because of the coup, but because a recent volcanic eruption had made the journey impossible."
Randy Ullom grew up in Michigan and the Northeast and first saw California during a five-year drought, finding the land barren. He spent his late teens and early twenties in Chile amid the early 1970s political upheaval and a military coup, and a volcanic eruption disrupted travel plans. He returned to the U.S., earned a degree in enology and viticulture from Ohio State, and spent five years making wine in upstate New York where Chardonnay became his focus. In 1981 he moved to the Russian River Valley to oversee Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at DeLoach Vineyards, helping expand production.
Read at The Mercury News
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