Wine Maker of the Year: Paul Dolan

Properly speaking, you can’t really name someone “wine maker of the year” unless you’re only talking about nouveau-style wines.

Most wines don’t taste good for at least a year after they’re made, and great wine usually takes a lot longer to show its stuff. Since the best wine maker last harvest can’t be known until the 1990 wines are released, my pick for best wine maker of 1990 must be someone who actually made the best wines four or five years ago--wines that only now we have been able to evaluate.

This makes consistency a critical factor in naming a wine maker of the year, and consequently my choice of Paul Dolan (Fetzer Vineyards, Mendocino County) is an easy one. Not that there aren’t other worthy wine makers who have been around a while. But the soft-spoken man who joined Fetzer in 1977 is a special talent.

Fetzer made almost 2 million cases of wine in 1990--more than 800,000 cases of Chardonnay alone. The amazing thing is that Fetzer has actually improved its overall quality since 1985, when its production was only 680,000 cases. It has done this by not operating like a mass-wine producer; Dolan keeps wines from different regions and vineyards separate.

With a team of dedicated wine makers, he has created excellence in even his lowest-priced wines. Dolan works closest with his top assistant, Dennis Martin, but coordinates different wines with wine makers Steve Dorfman, production chief; Phil Hurst, head of Fetzer’s Redwood Valley facility; Bob Blue, head of the Hopland facility, and Jamie Lewis, quality-control enologist. The Redwood Valley winery makes essentially red wines; white wine is made at Hopland.

“We get together often as a group,” Dolan says. “We get away from the winery and just sit down and talk about concepts, possibilities. We like to ask: ‘What’s missing?’ ”

Fetzer, owned by Kathleen Fetzer and her 11 children (10 of whom work in the company), is best known for its Sundial Chardonnay, made mostly from Mendocino and Monterey fruit. Fetzer makes more than 400,000 cases of it a year, and it ranks as one of the best mid-priced ($8) Chardonnays on the market: crisp with good varietal definition.

Dolan has also created quality wines from different grapes and regions. For example, when some premium grapes became scarce a few years ago, Fetzer boldly bought from the state of Washington.

Wine made at Coventry Vale in Washington was trucked to Mendocino. There, the bulk wine was blended by Dolan and his staff into fine Chardonnay, Cabernet and Merlot. Sold under Fetzer’s second label, Bel Arbors, they were great values at about $5.

Another wonderful wine is Fetzer Gewurztraminer, made from a grape variety so hard to pronounce that selling it is difficult and many wine makers have stopped making it. (Even Gallo, which once made 100,000 cases of Gewurztraminer annually, is reportedly thinking of dropping it from its line.)

Fetzer, however, hit on a style of wine and a marketing slogan (“Just say Gavertz”) that has caught on. And how: Fetzer made 165,000 cases of Gewurztraminer last year and expects to sell it all. No other winery makes more than a few thousand cases of it.

The wine is fairly sweet--nearly 3% residual sugar--but its honey-and-spice character is balanced by good acidity. And it sells for no more than $4.50 a bottle, about what most White Zinfandels cost. Fetzer has also had a lot of success with White Zinfandel, for that matter, selling some 320,000 cases a year (under both the Fetzer and Bel Arbors labels)--its second biggest seller after Chardonnay.

Until 1985, Dolan felt constrained by Fetzer’s wine-making ways. Little French oak was being used in aging to give red wines the character Americans like. And although Dolan had made some excellent Pinot Noirs, Pinot Blancs, Sauvignon Blancs and Zinfandels throughout the years, and a popular Cabernet with the Barrel Select designation on a regular basis starting in 1982, there was no premium line of Fetzer wines, no reserve wine program.

Then in 1985, Fetzer’s executives, notably president John Fetzer, agreed that a line of reserve wines was feasible. Grape sources were sought, and a heavy investment was made in expensive French oak barrels.

The Fetzer Reserve line hit the market last year, and the wines were stunning. The ’85 Fetzer Reserve Cabernet ($22) was one of the best wines of the year, and the soon-to-be-released 1986 Reserve ($24) is another beautiful, complex and rewarding wine. The 1988 late Harvest Riesling was one of the best I have ever tasted.

The Barrel Select Cabernet remains one of the great values. The 1986 sold for less than $10 in most stores and was amazingly good, with great aging potential. The 1987, just released at $12 (but often discounted), is deeper and more complex. It needs at least a year to lose its awkwardness. Aeration helps it now.

Dolan also makes small lots of other wines, including Pinot Noir and Petite Sirah, and now he’s thinking of making wine from the red Rhone varieties (Syrah, Grenache, etc.). Fetzer is also planting some acreage to Sangiovese, the grape of Chianti.

“We like to treat every wine as if the winery depended on it for survival,” says Dolan.

Another key to the quality here is the company’s relationship with growers. The family buys grapes from some 120 growers throughout the state. Once a year, Dolan says, “We sit down with all the growers and talk to them about what we can do to improve the overall quality.”

Martin says the grower meetings have become vital not only from a viticultural point of view, but just for exchange of information. “One of our growers might say, ‘My neighbor has some Zinfandel of the type you’re looking for.’ It’s that sort of communication that makes great wine.”

That’s an apt example, because last year that exact thing happened, and Fetzer picked up some superb Zinfandel. One that wine lovers may recognize is the Mariah Vineyard, whose grapes once made marvelous Zinfandel at Kendall-Jackson.

Fetzer has also done a brilliant job matching Dolan’s wine with food. The family recently added star chef John Ash to their staff. Already on board was Michael Maltas, whose four-acre organic garden yields some of the best fruits and vegetables in the state.

That garden has led the family to move heavily into organic grape growing. The 1,200 acres of vines (all in Mendocino) that the winery owns include 210 acres that are certified organic; an additional 200 acres are pending certification. Starting with the 1990 harvest, Dolan kept all lots of organic grapes separate, and by 1992 he may have an organic wine on the market.

John Fetzer, who looks at financial trends, “saw the wine recession coming about three years ago,” says Dolan, “so we cleaned up our debt and we’re a strong company now.”

With such a brilliant background and such respect among his peers, you may wonder what keeps Dolan here in the remote area of Mendocino when the neon lights of Napa beckon.

It may be his love for the system at Fetzer. But more likely it is that Dolan is married to a woman by the name of Diana, who is one of the 11 children of Kathleen and the late Barney Fetzer.

Wine of the Week

1989 Z Moore Gewurztraminer ($9) --This dry wine from David Moore, an innovative young wine maker, is aged in oak barrels for six months on the lees (the French sur lie method normally used for Chardonnay). This technique replaces some of the traditional spice of the variety with a toasty component. Still, the spice of Gewurztraminer is strong, yet the texture of the wine is more like Chardonnay--making it a fascinating alternative to Chardonnay, especially for spicy foods.

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