Dutton-Goldfield

Dutton-Goldfield Winery began with a handshake in a vineyard in 1998, when longtime colleagues and friends Steve Dutton and Dan Goldfield recognized a shared vision between them—to craft wines that express the personalities of their cool-climate vineyards, and which they'd enjoy drinking at their own dinner tables. 

A fifth-generation farmer, Steve grew up with a love of driving tractors, and without any doubt about his future career. His father, Warren Dutton, had begun growing grapes in the western reaches of Russian River Valley in the mid-1960s, at a time when most people thought the area was too cool to grow fruit for quality still wine. Steve started working with his father when he was five years old, and joined Dutton Ranch full-time in 1987. Today, along with his mother and brother, he manages the family business, which has grown from its original 35-acre home shop vineyard to over 80 separate vineyards comprising more than 1,000 acres throughout western Russian River Valley. 

After graduating from Boston's Brandeis University, Dan headed west to begin a career in research chemistry, with a few detours for skiing and hiking on the way. Always an outdoor enthusiast, the life of lab work was quickly replaced with a dream of winemaking when his brother turned him on to the 1969 Burgundies. Dan entered the University of California at Davis, graduating with an M.S. in Enology in 1986. He gained knowledge on the job with stints at Robert Mondavi Winery and Schramsberg as well as winemaking in Portugal for two years. He found his passion in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, first as the winemaker at the Burgundian-focused La Crema Winery, and then at Hartford Court, which was created under his direction. Dan's appreciation for the beauty of the extraordinary landscape around our home is reflected in his winemaking.

Dutton Ranch is comprised of over eighty separate small vineyards, each with its own characteristics. Most of the wine from our chosen vineyards (seven Pinot Noir, five Chardonnay) goes to comprise the Dutton Ranch blends. Certain specific lots from unique pieces of land with great individual personality will be bottled on their own as small releases of sub-vineyard designated wines. 

Dutton-Goldfield's Dutton Ranch Chardonnay emphasizes the bright crystalline citrus flavors and tropical overtones that reflect the pair's vision of classic Russian River Valley Chardonnay. The Rued Vineyard Chardonnay is produced from a hillside vineyard planted by Warren Dutton in 1969 with a high percentage of a particularly floral, high-toned Chardonnay clone, now broadly known as the Rued clone. This is a wine with exceptional richness, intense tropical aromas and exotic flavors.

The Pinot Noir vineyards Dutton-Goldfield selects for their wines have an even broader array of flavor differences. Grapes from the east side provide darker fruit flavors with higher tannins, while the western vineyards impart more spice and red fruits to the wine. Dutton-Goldfield's Pinots range from classic blackberry, cherry and spice flavors in the Dutton Ranch blend; to an elegant Burgundian structure and cranberry aromas in the Devil's Gulch; deep, ripe blackberry fruit in the Galante; and rich, dense boysenberry with exotic spice notes in the Freestone Hill. In any given year, Dutton-Goldfield Winery might release five to upwards of ten different wines from the cool climes of Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast, and Marin County to the south. Steve and Dan are constantly searching for new vineyards where everything comes together perfectly.

At Dutton-Goldfield, our mission is to produce distinctive wines that display the brightness of fruit, complexity, structure and balance that are reflective of our cool coastal home. We focus primarily on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, with a bit of Syrah, Zinfandel, and other fun wines when opportunities come our way. 

Pinot Noir is all about eliciting the flavors of the piece of earth from which it comes. We have the privilege of sourcing fruit from a spectacular array of vineyards throughout western Russian River Valley and beyond, many of which Steve and Dan worked together to plant. From our favorite Dutton Ranch parcels, we select the vineyards that will blend together to become a quintessential Russian River pinot. We then choose a few special sites that epitomize their terroir to bottle in limited-production single-vineyard wines. In all our pinots, our goal is to create wines of balance and individuality that speak about their home.

The distinctive character of the land truly comes through in wines from the old, cold, dry-farmed chardonnay vineyards of Green Valley. Warren Dutton was the first to plant chardonnay in the coldest areas of western Russian River in the mid '60s, giving Dutton Ranch a choice collection of vineyards today. From these, we select sites that give us wines with a vibrant citrus core, focused fruit, great richness and solid acidity, even after full barrel and malolactic fermentation.