the DARK

HORSE
of agriculture
AGRICULTURE

Miranda Squires

Paul Dolan uses a flow form

(left): a mechanism that mixes
different biodynamic materials to spray over the soil
and leaves of his vines.

photos by miranda squires

Organically grown
grapes (right) score
four points higher than
conventionally grown
grapes, and reduce carbon
dioxide emissions.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO

Paul Dolan

Along the Russian River watershed, in Northern California, you can find the dark horse of
the wine industry. Paul Dolan, owner of Dark
Horse Ranch, is part of a new breed of grape
cultivators, creating a self-reliant farm by
drawing on his skills as a fourth generation
farmer not an arsenal of petrochemicals to
control pests and replenish the soil.
His aptitude for developing some of the
industrys most expressive and fruitful wine
grapes reaches back several generations. His
great-grandfather was wine legend, Pietro
Carlo Rossi, an immigrant from a small village
outside Turin, Italy, who founded the Italian
Swiss Colony Winery in Asti, California.
Winemaking shaped Dolans childhood. He
remembers eyeing a huge board displaying
the medals his grandfather had won for the
wine, and chasing his cousins around the winery eating cookies out of small wine barrels.
Motivated by memories of family tradition,
he says, I decided to make a transition from
running an infantry platoon to starting a few
classes in chemistry to prepare myself for
studying winemaking at the California State
University, Fresno.
Today, Dolan draws on sustainable, regenerative practices to enrich the capacity of the
soil and enhance the space in which the vines
grow, all while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Dolan says, It wasnt until after World War II
that my father started using chemical compounds that led us away from farming the
natural way.
Thirty years ago, Dolan launched the wine
industrys slow transition from conventional
to regenerative viticulture as head winemaker
at Fetzer Vineyards.

CO2
Walking between rows of grapevines on the
Fetzer property, Dolan tasted grapes from two
adjacent vine blocks.
The grapes from the first block were infused
with the crisp flavors of citrus and melon,
perfect for sauvignon blanc, he says, But
when I tried the same variety from a second
vineyard block just 15 feet away, the grapes
tasted flat and insipid.
Contemplating the difference between the
grapes gathered from identical vines growing
across the tractor path from each other,
Dolan recalls, The first block of vines was
part of an experiment in organic farming we
had started the year before.
[We had] farmed the second block conventionally applying pesticides, herbicides and
fungicides throughout the growing season,
then replenishing what wed stripped from
the soil with synthetic chemical fertilizers, he
explained.
Petrochemicals used on the second block of
vines had sapped the life from the earth.
Dolan says, Before that moment, I had only
read about the impact of pesticides on the
environment, [but] I had never experienced
the effect they could have on flavor. Now, I
tasted it firsthand.
Encouraged by the success of his radical
experiments at Fetzer Vineyards he knew he
wanted to farm in harmony with the land.
In 1997, he and his sons purchased the
160-acre Dark Horse Ranch. To focus on
developing the deepest flavored wine grapes
while limiting greenhouse gas emissions
they replanted the 65-acre vineyard with
drought resistant rootstock and cuttings from
varietals that compliment the climate, soil,
and terrain.

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A thousand feet above the valley floor, zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, syrah and petite
syrah grapevines crawl up the rolling hills of
Ukiah, California.
Because the property is along the Russian
River watershed it is filled with Oak, Madrone, Manzanita and fir trees. Paul says this
combination of trees indicates red vine series
soil. The rock formation absorbs moisture
and the clay structure binds it. The ranch
encompasses not only 65 acres of vines, but
a 75-acre woodland, a 20-acre pasture for
Dolans sheep, and a grove of hundreds of
olive trees, along with cypress and legumes
scattered throughout to encourage a self-reliant ecosystem.
A farm is not natural; it is outside of wild
expression or natures expression because its
something we compose, Dolan says.
As a regenerative farmer, Dolan enriches the
land organically by mixing his own compost
and creating his own biodynamic preparations to apply over the soil and leaves of his
vines. He relies on the vitality of the Earth by
enhancing the capacity of the soil and the
space in which his vines grow.
The property is communicating all the time.
You can see it in the way the vines grow
or dont grow, the attraction to other life
forms like birds and insects and other small
animalslistening to the property is a really
critical piece to using biodynamics, Dolan
says.
The vineyard teems with life as sheep graze
the hillsides and enrich the soil through their
manure, bird houses are fastened to tall trees
for bluebirds to feed on predator insects and
owls to prey on gophers while wild bats from
the woodland come to eat mosquitos and
other vineyard pests.
Dolan and his son Heath often discuss the
ecology of farming, saying the ranch has a
complex biome that produces the highest
quality of grapes the most balanced wines
when the vineyard reaches a natural equilibrium.
California agriculture accounts for 12 percent
of greenhouse gases. Burning fossil fuel and
decomposing organic soil matter produce
atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), greenhouse gases that
contribute to climate change when they get
trapped in the Earths atmosphere, warming
its surface.
By allowing farm animals to roam his vineyard, Dolan reduces CO2 and NO2 emissions
by enriching soil with natural fertilizer, and
he limits the number of insects and other
vineyard pests without using pesticides.

Since the 1850s, Americans have relied

increasingly on diverse energy sources rather
than human power to produce their food
and forest products. These relatively cheap
and abundant supplies of fossil fuel have
been substituted for human and draft animal
energy, says David Pimentel, Professor at the
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell University.
By planting cover crops such as clover,
vetch, bell beans and oats between
vineyard rows Dolan extracts nitrogen
from the air, and attracts beneficial
insects, while limiting the erosion
of mountain soils during heavy
winter rains.
Part of a varied landscape
instead of a monoculture,
grapevine, woodland,
and olive tree roots
reach several feet into
ground enriching
the soil with
sugars creating
sustenance for
soil dwelling
organisms.
Flowers
and
shrubs
create a
communication
highway for
pollinators like
hummingbirds
and bees to pass
information from
plant to plant while
reducing soil erosion,
weeds and other soil and
vine pillagers.
While petrochemicals sap
vitality from the earth, Dolan
naturally enhances the capacity
of his soil by blending compost
from the year before with cow
manure and a combination of grape
skins, pulp and seeds called pomace,
and then covering it with straw.
On a fall morning several years ago Dolans
son reached down, not for a cluster of
grapes, but for the compost layered a top the
soil, saying, Its like gold.
Weve found that theres 30% more nutrient
available in biodynamic compost than there
is in conventional or organic compost, he
says, and that theres 100 to 1000 times

more microbial activity inside of the biodynamic compost. The higher activity of soil organisms accelerates the turnover of nitrogen,
phosphorous and potassium.
Combining cover crop or low-till farming with
practices like enriching the soil with manure
sequesters carbon dioxide, and without the
use of tractors and other equipment Dolan
eliminates his use of fossil fuels.
Without constant irrigation, Dolans
vines draw moisture and nutrients
from deep, well-drained, alluvial
soils preserving a vital natural
resource. So when the vine is old
enough, and realizes it doesnt
have enough water, it begins
to find its own water and
food sources by digging
deeper into the soil
reducing NO2 emissions
and developing the
deepest flavored
(non-diluted) wine
grapes.
Nitrogen
dioxide is
hundreds
of times
more
powerful
than
carbon
dioxide
at trapping heat
in the Earths
atmosphere;
Dolan also limits
the amount of
NO2 released from
the vineyard by
dry-framing.
For the first four years of its
life, a young vine is watered
more frequently, using a
collection of rainwater from a
man-made pond created on the
property for any of watering processes, and considers only 20 inches
of rainwater to be a full pond.
Nitrogen dioxide is emitted from the soil
when water fills air pockets creating conditions for microbes to respire nitrogen. Dolan
enables his vines to organize themselves in
such a way as to not expect water to be supplied on a timely basis.
During the fourth or fifth year of a vines life
the water supply is diminished by half. The
next year that half is diminished by half and

so on, until the vine is no longer reliant on an

external nutrient source.
Dolan says, I look at farming grapevines kind
of like raising a child. A parent can contribute to the space within which a child grows
up by enrolling them in the best schools,
putting healthy food on the table, living in a
good neighborhood and allowing the child to
participate in extracurricular activities. All
with the idea that someday [they] will grow
up and be fully expressed and do what [they]
want to do, he says. Just like Dolan with his
vines, parents dream that their offspring will
one day be self-sufficient.
By using both no-till and dry farming practices, Dark Horse Ranch reduces greenhouse
gas emissions by 9 kilograms of CO2 for every
unused gallon of diesel fuel.
Along with limiting emissions, dry-farming
aids in building a vines resilience to external threats like sun exposure. When a vine
becomes overheated in the hot summer sun,
it digs its roots deep into the soil to reach the
coolest, freshest water, typically in the Mayacamas region the water is about 58 degrees,
allowing the vine to cool itself off.
Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner is the
inspiration for many of Dolans farming practices. Unlike humans who have emancipated
themselves from their space, meaning we go
inside when it is too hot or too cold, the [vines
are] out here always aware of the rhythm
and nature of the space in which [they are]
exposed, Dolan says.
By enhancing his vines ability to find nourishment through communicating with the
species around them in a balanced ecosystem, Paul has created self sufficient crops
that dont rely on the farmer.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating the industrys deepest flavored grapes is
what makes Paul Dolan a true dark horse. The
proof can be found in the wine itself.
Magali Delmas, a professor from UCLAs Anderson School of Management, lead a team to
evaluate the results of 74,148 wines produced
between 1998 and 2009. Her team discovered
that biodynamic or organic farming significantly improved wine quality.
On average, wine made from biodynamic and
organic grapes scored four points higher on
a one-hundred-point scale than wine made
from conventionally grown grapes.
Terroir is term used by French winemakers
to describe their sense of place. You want
to give the place all the tools it needs to be
completely and fully expressed, Dolan says.
By respecting the land, Dark Horse Ranch
embodies the ideal of Terroir.

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