Up-in-smoke barbecue and sommelier-led wine school experiences at ZinFest

Entrée to ZinFest Wine Festival in Lodi's bucolic Lodi Lake Park

Next month's Lodi ZinFest Wine Festival (Saturday, May 14, 12-5 PM) will be chock-full of opportunities for Lodi wine lovers experience things they love most (like barbecued foods and wines) or to expand their wine knowledge with the guideance of two of the state's most respected sommelier/educators, under the cozy tent of our ZinFest Wine School.

Apr 20, 2016 at 7:00 AM Permalink

The old Mondavi home in Lodi is still an artistic hub

The unmarked former home of the Mondavi family near the center of Downtown Lodi

Lodi artist and businessman Tony Segale – who has also been profiled by Lodi News-Sentinel as “Lodi’s best-known sign painter” – lives in the original, longtime home of the Mondavi family, just two block west of Downtown Lodi’s main drag (School Street).

Apr 18, 2016 at 7:00 AM Permalink

The love-in of diversity at Lodi ZinFest

Lodi Lake Park entrance to 2015 ZinFest

ZinFest Wine Festival – by far, Lodi’s biggest yearly event – is just a motion away: Saturday, May 14, 2016 (12-5 PM), taking place on the lush, dreamy peninsula between Lodi Lake and the Mokelumne River, where towering oaks, willows and riparian brush and birdlife set the table for a natural love-in feel to this vinous experience.

This may be called ZinFest; but as thousands of wine lovers discover each year, the Lodi Viticultural Area is all about far more than Zinfandel. Lodi has evolved into a magnet for the newest generation of grape connoisseurs who, frankly, have grown tired of conventional varietals and bigger-than-thou (or high “scoring”) attitudes.

Apr 13, 2016 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Fields Family's wines epitomize the best of boutique handcrafting

When Lodi's Russ Fields and Ryan Sherman first got together to start making wine back in 2005, you could well describe the endeavor as your classic two-guys-with-day-jobs-and-extra-time-and-a-tub-of-grapes-on-their-hand situation. Mr. Sherman looks back on their first three vintages as “mad scientist” days; telling us: “We had no formal background, training, experience or reference points other than our own. So we did dozens of trails... just being curious, trying to learn, figure shit out for ourselves without anyone else’s protocol or dogma.”

Apr 11, 2016 at 8:00 AM Permalink Comments (1)

Women of Lodi's wine industry: Grape exec Amy Blagg

Amy Blagg in her Petite Sirah Vineyard on Lodi's east side

We are continuing our series of profiles on the Lodi wine industry’s most powerful women with a conversation with Amy Blagg, the Executive Director of the Lodi District Grape Growers Association (LDGGA).

Apr 6, 2016 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Women of Lodi's wine industry: LangeTwins Family's Kendra Altnow

Lange Twins Family's Kendra Altnow with her Coonhound Bruno

Continuing our series of profiles on the Lodi wine industry’s most powerful women, we present to you Kendra Altnow, the Marketing Manager of LangeTwins Family Winery & Vineyards as well as LCF Wines (the latter, a multi-brand product line established by the Lange family in partnership with two other families). 

Mar 31, 2016 at 4:23 PM Permalink

Women of Lodi's wine industry: Elyse Perry of Bokisch Vineyards

Bokisch Vineyards winemaker Elyse Perry

In the third of our profiles of the Lodi wine industry’s most powerful women, we are highlighting Elyse Egan Perry, the winemaker of Bokisch Vineyards.

Ms. Perry’s position is a huge, complex responsibility, as it not only entails vinification of Bokisch Vineyards’ cutting-edge, multi-award winning Iberian varietal wines, but also the custom crush production of wines for numerous winery clients purchasing fruit from Bokisch Ranches. The Bokischs’ farming operation supplies some 40 different grape varieties grown on over 2,200 acres, in six of Lodi’s seven official sub-appellations.

Mar 24, 2016 at 6:00 AM Permalink

Women of Lodi's wine industry: Janis Barsetti Gray of Barsetti Vineyards

The morning after a March storm, Janis Barsetti Gray looks at her budding 2016 Zinfandel

In the second of our profiles of the Lodi wine industry’s most powerful women, we are proud to hold up Janis Barsetti Gray as one of our more admired figures – a story about one woman’s lifelong devotion to her family’s farming heritage. A story about Lodi.

Mar 22, 2016 at 6:00 AM Permalink Comments (1)

Women of Lodi's wine industry: Joan Kautz of Ironstone Vineyards

Ironstone Vineyards' Joan Kauz in one of Kautz Farms' east-side Lodi vineyards

This if the first of several posts in which we will be profiling a few of the Lodi wine industry’s most powerful women, and letting them tell their own stories.

There are few women as significant as Joan Kautz, who serves as Sales & Marketing Manager of Ironstone Vineyards, which has been listed among the 20 largest wineries (in terms of cases sold) in the U.S. Although many wine lovers are aware that Ironstone’s winery and tasting room are located in Calaveras, in the Sierra Foothills, the Kautz family’s operations have always been primarily based in the Lodi Viticultural Area, where they farm some 4,500 acres of premium wine grapes as John Kautz Farms.

Mar 16, 2016 at 2:03 PM Permalink

Bokisch Vineyards opens new tasting room in Lodi's Clements Hills

Markus and Liz Bokisch at the entrance of the new Bokisch Vineyards tasting room

Bokisch Vineyards’ Terra Alta Vineyard has always been one of Lodi wine country’s most spectacular, photogenic, yet very rarely seen (at least by visiting wine lovers) sites. 

It sits in Lodi’s Clements Hills Viticultural Area, east of the City of Lodi, which is a region of bucolic, rolling hills and gravelly clay soils – in dramatic contrast to the flat, sandy loam landscape of Lodi’s more historic Mokelumne River AVA, surrounding the little City of Lodi.

Mar 9, 2016 at 3:30 PM Permalink Comments (3)