Books, Arts & Manners: 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 Moët-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—Rosé 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.

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 Moët-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—Rosé 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.