Zelma of Simi.

ZELMA OF SIMI 

MEET ZELMA LONG, a blonde Nordic beauty who is a terrific American success story as an outstanding winemaker in a still male-dominated field. At Simi, a pretty winery in California's Sonoma Valley, Zelma produces wonderfully good wines with the backing of Simi's president, Michael D. Dixon, a shrewd businessman who realized the necessity of modernizing the hundred-year-old winery. The canny Dixon amassed the money for this task through a series of business deals with Moet-Hennessy, France's largest liquor and wine concern. Mr. Dixon's wise money management and extraordinary business acumen laid the foundations; he put the capstone on his efforts in 1979 by hiring Zelma and giving her a free hand to create the wines that have made the new Simi labels famous. Together, they have transformed the staid, old-fashioned establishment into America's outstanding middle-sized winery, whose Chardonnays, Cabernets, Sauvignon Blancs, and --one of my own favorites--Rose de Cabernet Sauvignon have won much success among wine lovers. If a bottle says Simi, you may be sure the contents are worth drinking.

When I first met Zelma, she was working as an oenologist in the labs of the Robert Mondavi Winery in the nearby Napa Valley. She spent ten years learning from Robert Mondavi, one of the most progressive winemakers of all time. After joining Simi, Zelma's first job was to help design some sorely needed new fermentation tanks, and to concern herself with the three-year expansion and renovation that brought the old winery into the twentieth century.

Zelma's new and often pioneering improvements show in the elegance and refinement of her wines; to my mind, her Chardonnays--both the voluptuous reserve and the most attractive 1984 Mendocino and Sonoma County wine--show best her constant pursuit of excellence. Among her technical innovations at Simi are the first must-chiller in Sonoma County, an automatic barrel washer, and a pomace removal system (all of this saves time in the hurried first phases of wine production), as well as new pressing, fermenting, and barrel-aging techniques, to mention only a few.

Zelma's stated ambition is to make the very best wines of each kind: "First comes elegance and finesse,' she says. "Second is flavor concentration and third is complexity, representing a diversity of aromas and flavors.' Of course, that is what any honest winemaker hopes to achieve, but then, as we know to our sorrow, how many actually do?

Zelma Long grew up in a small town in Oregon and graduated with honors in science from Oregon State University. After an internship at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, she worked for a while as a professional dietitian, but her heart wasn't in it. So, when she moved to Napa Valley and became aware of grapes and winemaking, she enrolled at the University of California at Davis in a master's program of oenology. (By the way, UC Davis is the place where modern winemaking, scientific grape-growing, and the development of winemaking equipment are being pioneered. Davis has trained oenologists from practically all over the world, and it is respected as a repository of contemporary wine knowledge as far afield as Bulgaria, as a Bulgarian oenologist told me when explaining a piece of machinery that was an accurate copy of one I had seen in California.)

Zelma proved to be a bright and promising student and thus came to the attention of Robert Mondavi, who hired her as a part-time lab technician for the 1970 harvest. At that point Zelma's career was launched. She did not return to Davis, but instead became Robert Mondavi's head oenologist and started, with her former husband, the small and exquisite Long Vineyards, where she continues to produce superb wines.

The nice thing about Zelma is that her phenomenal success hasn't spoiled her in any way. She is the same easygoing, kindhearted, and patient person she has been as long as I have known her, which is more years than I care to remember. What's more, she is eager to know new things of every kind and description, which is not a common characteristic of winemakers.

Zelma is a lot of fun to be with because she loves fun herself. Recently, she got herself into a tank of red grapes when the (male) assistant winemaker challenged her to see who was quicker in shoveling out a tank. (Shoveling out tanks is very dirty, heavy, though necessary work, normally done by low-ranking cellar workers.) Zelma and her co-worker won handily, finishing the job in two-thirds of the time it took her challenger and his assistant. It was a great thing, I was told, to see top management doing the work of a winery's lower echelons. It certainly showed one reason why my regard for Zelma is shared by the people who work for her.

To close on a practical note: Simi wines mostly run between $8 and $15 a bottle. They are not California's cheapest wines, but they are well worth the price.