At the same time, Dolan is working hard to build the category for organic wines. Most stores in the United States still don't have a section for organics, and consumers aren't familiar with them. Fetzer has developed a special organic label, Five Hills Blue, that retails for just $5.99 at supermarket chain Trader Joe's. To help build the category, Dolan says he's introducing Trader Joe's to organic-wine makers in Argentina, Australia, and Chile. He is also working with a second supermarket chain, Albertson's, to develop a similar proprietary organic wine.
Dolan's methods seem to be rubbing off. Parent company Brown-Forman, which produces Lenox china and Hartmann luggage along with wines and spirits, launched its first-ever chairman's conference on sustainability this year. "Not everything that Dolan is doing in California translates perfectly for our other business units, but we are trying to learn from Fetzer as much as possible," says spokesman Phil Lynch. Leaders from the California wine industry, who once chastised Dolan for rocking the boat, banded together last year under the banner of the Wine Institute (a trade group for the California wine industry) to introduce the first statewide sustainable wine-growing-practices code. "Paul and Fetzer are trailblazers," says Kari Birdseye, a spokeswoman for the institute. "When they'd proven that being sustainable can save you money and make you more efficient, well, that was attractive to business owners, and they were ready to get on board." With his book, which hit shelves last month, Dolan is hoping that the mystique of the wine business will be enough to draw in readers from other industries to listen to his message: "The world doesn't readily show itself in sustainable ways. You make the decision that this is the way business must be done. It's that simple."
Alison Overholt (aoverholt@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company staff writer based in San Francisco.
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