Beat the Heat: Why Lodi's Delta Breeze Makes Summer Wine Tasting Magical

 

Morning light illuminates Lodi's picturesque vineyards, where Mediterranean climate and Delta Breeze cooling create distinctive terroir for exceptional winegrowing.

Summer in Lodi delivers classic California sunshine – those bright, warm days that ripen grapes to perfection and send wine lovers seeking shade. But here's Lodi's secret weapon: the Delta Breeze.

Every day beginning in the late afternoon, cool air travels inland from the San Francisco Bay, following a vast network of waterways that play a key role in defining the wine country’s climate and character. 

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Oh lord, a blog from Lodi—the 2025 farewell

Harvest morning in Mokelumne River-Lodi's Abba Vineyard, planted to Syrah.

Farewell by Randy Caparoso

Oh lord, a blog from Lodi was the title of the very first blog posted on the Lodi Wine page in August 2010, written by yours truly. Over 1,200 posts later, I think it is fitting that this should be the title of my very last post, as I will departing Lodi wine country in July of 2025. 

First, I’d like to thank all the region’s growers and vintners who have welcomed me into their community these past fifteen years. But also first, I need to thank you, Lodi Wine’s dear and patient readers who have indulged in this site’s continuous flights and forays into viticulture and vinification, farmers, winemakers and all the characters peppering the region’s past and present, the seemingly endless variety of grapes and equally varied wines, almost every iota of the dirt, topography, climate and natural or human circumstances—each and everything that has distinguished the Lodi appellation from any other in the world. The goal has always been differentiation, the gist of every post appearing on this page...

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Ingredients listings and key taste components found in commercial wines

Barrel tasting dark, rich, vividly flavorful Cabernet Sauvignon.

Sugar and spice and all that’s nice, as the old nursery rhyme goes.

There are lots of nice things in wine, although there are very few wineries that actually print “Ingredients”—that is, additions dropped on top of natural components of wines during the winemaking process—on back labels; ostensibly, because it is felt by most of the industry that most consumers might be shocked if they find out what actually ends up in commercial grade wine. If you are not required to list everything going into a bottle (a circumstance many consumer advocates think should be changed), why do it?

I was at one Sonoma County winery’s tasting room just last week, tasting the brand’s signature estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon. The owner explained that over the years she has had problems impressing upon consumers that her grapes are certified organic and the fact that her wines are made in the lowest interventionist way possible (that is, without compromizing quality or terroir expression). So she borrowed the idea of printing ingredients on her back label from another winery that specializes in minimal intervention wine. This is the exact wording found on her bottlings...

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