I knew Paul, and he was congenial and gentle about making his points. Much of his best work in spreading the environmental gospel was done not in overalls, but in a business suit.
Dolan was always at the forefront of environmentally responsible grapegrowing: in 2018, he left Demeter and joined the board of the Regenerative Organic Alliance as its only wine industry representative. Years later he became chair of Demeter USA and oversaw the 2018 International Biodynamic Wine Conference. He served on President Clinton's Council on Sustainability. I think everyone who is in the organic or biodynamic movement has had the experience of doing something and then realizing Paul tried it, or implemented it, a decade earlier."ĭolan was comfortable in the board room, first as president of Fetzer, then as chairman of the Wine Institute in 20. "I remember, not long after I moved out here in 2002, going to a talk where he was on a panel and he said that within a generation climate change was going to force major changes to the landscape of California wine. "I don't know of anyone who was so consistently ahead of his time on farming in wine as he was," said Jason Haas, general manager of Tablas Creek Vineyard. In 1991, the Los Angeles Times named him Winemaker of the Year, helping put Mendocino County wines firmly on the map for US consumers. He was one of the most influential California winemakers of the 20th Century as a pioneer of both organics and biodynamics. Related stories:ĭolan died June 26 after a long battle with cancer. This is hard to imagine now, but in many US stores in the early 1990s, Fetzer wine was one of the few organic products of any kind.
With the support of Jim Fetzer, he built Fetzer into a nationwide powerhouse. When Paul Dolan began asking Mendocino County farmers to grow wine grapes organically in the 1980s, he said, "They thought we were nutcases."īut Dolan, then head winemaker at Fetzer Vineyards, was persuasive. © Paul Dolan | Paul Dolan was equally at home in the boardroom as he was on the farm.
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