A Morning in Houston with Drops of Golden Dew: Dotson-Cervantes Gotas de Oro

It was 9:30 on a weekday morning when the door bell rang. I expected this as, the evening before, I received a call from Alphonse Dotson. He said that he and his wife Martha were  going to be in Houston visiting his Mother. They were on the verge of releasing their first wine and wanted to stop by to visit with my wife Delia and me.

Alphonse and Martha arrived at our home in central Houston on a sunny, dew-laden morning.  We leisurely sat in our living room as we tasted their new wine, the first under the Wines of Dotson-Cervantes label with the fascinating name “Gotas de Oro”. The name was a contribution by Martha which translates to “Drops of Gold” from her native Spanish.

As we relaxed and talked about friends, family and common acquaintances, I poured the wine that was well described by its name. The silky yellow liquid poured from the bottle with the color of golden drops of morning dew. The initial taste was pure tropical expression with sweet, very ripe pineapple with a follow-on of apricot and nectarine. Perfumed jasmine aromatics arose from the glass. The finish included a hint of musk. This was really one complex wine; quite an accomplishment for the couple’s first commercial release.

The mouth feel was silky soft filling every nook, cranny and crevice with pure sweet fruit nectar of Muscat Canelli. In juxtaposition, the wine finished crisp and clean which made the wine’s level of residual sweetness less apparent. The finish prompted the question….What else was in the mix? To this Alphonse simply said, “Yes, the wine was a blend with another varietal from our vineyard…a ‘secret ingredient’ that brought a completely different quality to this wine that was most apparent in the finish”. The wine started sweet, but finished dry leaving my palate fresh and ready for more.

Not bad at all for a 9:30 am start to my wine day….

An Interestingly Modern Texas Couple

Unless you are either interested in Texas wines or good with sports history, you might not know who Alphonse and Martha are. For now, I will just say that they are an interestingly modern Texas couple. A couple that is helping to redefine rural Texas as wine country.

My acquaintance with Alphonse goes back only seven or eight years, to my early days as a TWGGA (Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association – www.txwines.org) member and where he served at TWGGA President, but it has been memorable. Alphonse is of grand proportions with wide shoulders, and he seems to always sport a large cowboy hat and one of the most captivating Texas-size smiles that I have ever seen. He is man with a capacity to command a discussion or even a room full of people using words that he delivers at a slow and deliberate pace, and his words are always softly spoken. Martha is his petite counterpart and, at times, his alter ego. That morning they both beamed with excitement with their creation and it was understandable as Gotas de Oro is a first-rate wine.

Martha admitted, “The production of our wine was the culmination of a full year’s work and took a lot of personal involvement; actually more than either of us expected.” Alphonse followed by saying, “Martha and I have talked about releasing a wine for a long time. After saying mañana, mañana, mañana, for a long time now, we finally decided to go forward with the project. Our motivation was due to Mother Nature who has fooled with many Texas winegrowers over the past few years with a series of late freezes, hail and such.”

Gotas de Oro is a blend of grapes from Alphonse and Martha’s Certenberg Vineyard (http://wine.appellationamerica.com/wine-review/523/Certenberg-Vineyards.html). With the weather-related shortage of Texas grapes the past years, in this vintage, they had to blend some non-Texas grapes into the mix. As a result Gotas de Oro carries an American Appellation. However, Alphonse mentioned that they plan that that this wine will always contain a major part of Texas in it, in fact, as much as possible. The honesty presented by this couple when approaching this subject was refreshing as some would seek to hide the non-Texas grape contribution under the words “For Sale in Texas Only” on the back label but, not Alphonse and Martha. I know from my previous experiences with Alphonse that he shoots straight and honest, and I applaud that.

You might ask…Well, what do you serve at this early hour of the morning with Dotson-Cervantes Gotas de Oro? Well, just prior to Alphonse and Martha’s arrival, I stopped at a nearby bakery to pick up a few breakfast kolaches (www.kolachefactory.com) filled with scrambled eggs and cheese. For the uninitiated, Kolaches are type of pastry brought to Texas by Czech immigrants over a hundred and fifty years ago. By chance, the filling in these particular kolaches were also made with a spicy splash of ranchero sauce that made a perfect match with Gotas de Oro, intertwining the wine’s fruity sweetness with a bit of Tex-Mex piquant.

As we enjoyed the morning fare between sips of Gotas de Oro, Alphonse indicated that their new venture was the first in Texas to utilize a law called “alternating proprietorship” that allows winemakers to share facilities. It effectively creates a winery-within-a-winery, each operating separately. Armed with this law, the newly formed “Wines of Dotson-Cervantes” went to long time friend and business associate Ed Auler at Fall Creek Vineyards (www.fcv.com) in their quest to produce their first wine.

To put this new venture into proper context, you should know that Alphonse and his wife Martha have been the owners of Certenberg Vineyards since the mid-1990s. Their property is situated on the northwest rim of the Texas Hill Country. Certenberg Vineyards is known for some of the highest quality grapes produced in Texas, especially their Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay. As you might guess, these particular European varietals are difficult “critters to corral” in Texas and require a special terroir and a lot of tender loving care. If you have tasted Fall Creek Meritus (a super-premium red Bordeaux blend - www.fcv.com/meritus) or Fall Creek Chardonnay, you have sampled first-rate Certenberg Vineyard fruit.

The Rest of the Story

Later that morning, Alphonse continued his start-up story in his characteristic unhurried, methodical manner. He related that since Wines of Dotson-Cervantes was a first of its kind operation in Texas, many of the regulators were unsure exactly what type of documentation was needed to comply with the new law. This made the process slow and somewhat daunting, but Alphonse and Martha prevailed albeit taking longer than they originally planned.

Just then I thought that the story was coming to an end and the wine pouring would continue, Alphonse interjected, “When the regulators were happy and everything was signed, sealed and delivered we really thought that we were through with the hard stuff. I had experience working with the Ed at Fall Creek Vineyards, and I had the utmost confidence that our wine would be first-rate. “

Then, Alphonse’s face showed a bit of seriousness when he said, “Once we agreed that our winemaking task was complete, the bottles were ordered. We wanted something distinctive and settled on this tall slender dark green, near-opaque bottle, something suitable to contain their premium wine. However, when the bottling line started at Fall Creek, Martha and I could not believe what was happening. The bottler started knocking the bottles over and our wine started spilling on the floor.”  Apparently, the necks on the bottles were a bit out of kilter. Alphonse said, “To get the wine bottled, Martha and I, along with several of the winery staff, had to assist every bottle as they went through the bottling line.” I imagine that this was an unexpected labor of love; something that you might say qualifies Gotas de Oro to be called a true “hand crafted and balanced” wine.

Like a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise (de Tejas)

We continued our visit with a third pour of Gotas de Oro. I sat back for a moment to contemplate where this wine fits into my wine tasting experiences. My impression was that the quality of Gotas de Oro was impressive, especially for a first-release wine from a family-run winery. The characteristics were very similar to a fifty dollar bottle of fine French Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, a special wine I reach for when I am looking for a particularly satisfying sip, not just a generous quaff. Gotas de Oro has a similarly special flexibility that will titillate your taste buds alone as an aperitif or as a superb pairing with full flavored cheeses, foie gras or even spicy Texas cuisine. Last, but not least, this wine will nicely augment desserts made with fresh fruits, chocolate and/or almonds.

I asked Alphonse what brought him to his present career in grape growing and wine production. He mentioned, “It all started with my namesake, Grandfather Alphonse Certenberg in Houston. I remember when I was ten or eleven years old and being at my grandfather’s house. He had a large arbor, maybe 40 or 50 feet long made from grape vines that fascinated me. I also had good role models like my father’s brother Samuel Willis Dotson that helped me develop my work habits. I also can’t forget the help that I received from ‘The Devine Individual Above’. I believe that he pointed me to this career and the spot where we now have our vineyard”. From humble beginnings, Alphonse learned patience, being observant and the good feeling of hard work done well. Now with the help from his wife Martha, he tends over 20 acres at Certenberg Vineyards in McCullough County, Texas. 

More to the Dotson-Cervantes Story than Grapes

And while the grape growing exploits of the Dotson family is a meaningful story, there’s a lot more to this family line. After being born and raised in Houston, Alphonse (then, simply known as Al Dotson) went to Grambling State University, where he was an All-American football player and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers. He later played from 1967-70 for the Oakland Raiders. The time he spent as a Raider apparently left an indelible mark on him. You can even see it in the Gotas de Oro label which has a close likeness to the Oakland Raiders emblem.

After his NFL career, Alphonse spent a spell in Acapulco, Mexico where he met and married Martha Cervantes and then they returned to Texas to start their vineyard. In addition to raising grapes, the Dotson’s also helped produced another professional football player, son Santana Dotson who was NFL Rookie of the Year in 1992 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and played in two Super Bowls with the Green Bay Packers.

Another facet of Alphonse is his personal love for the arts and education. He graduated Cum Laude in Fine Arts and has a secret longing to one day have the time to return to his charcoal sketching. In a follow-up to our morning visit, I asked Alphonse what was his most memorable accomplishment? He said that it was not related to football, or even wine. It was the time that he spent in New Orleans working with a difficult class of special needs kids. It’s no wonder that Alphonse was later asked by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve on the Executive Committee of the Texas Commission on the Arts (www.arts.state.tx.us.

Where Can You Find It?

In closing, I inquired about Alphonse and Martha’s plans for Wines of Dotson-Cervantes. Right now, they are focused and working hard on launching Gotas de Oro personally distributing it around the state of Texas.  Since our visit, Alphonse and Martha have quickly landed spots on the shelves at several Spec’s Liquor stores (www.specsonline.com) in Houston, Sugarland, The Woodlands and Austin, Feldman’s Liquor stores in McAllen, Edinburg and Harlingen (www.cnsrvr.com/mtm/rt/feldmans/ec.html), and Wildseed Farms (www.wildseedfarms.com) in Fredericksburg. Restaurants lining up for this wine are the Cabernet Grill (www.CabernetGrill.com) in Fredericksburg and III Forks (www.IIIforks.com) in Houston and Austin.