Some twenty-first century wine tasting terms, part 1 (nose)

Acclaimed San Francisco based wine educator and journalist Deborah Parker Wong examining Lodi wine

A little knowledge goes a long way. It's also said that a little knowledge can be dangerous. I can't agree with that. What's actually dangerous, particularly to yourself, is not enough knowledge.

That's what difficult about contemporary wine tasting. Many of the wines we are often asked to appreciate today do not exactly comport with the usual "how to taste wine" instructions found in books, online pages or videos. It's one thing to learn how to see, smell and taste wine, but it's another thing to understand what you are seeing, smelling and tasting. Maybe even more important: Exactly why you are seeing, smelling and tasting certain things...

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The Tizona Malbec is a rare sensory experience of one of Lodi's most obscure terroirs

Lodi's LODI RULES certified Linden Hills Vineyard

The 2017 Tizona by Bokisch Vineyards Linden Ridge Vineyards Lodi Malbec ($32) is a lovely wine. What may be even more interesting is its provenance: Linden Ridge Vineyard, located in the "gray area" located in the south-eastern fringes of the Lodi Viticultural Area, in the vicinity of the census-designated agricultural hub of Linden (at last count, population 1,784), directly east of Stockton. As they say about little farming towns like Linden, if you blink as you drive past it on Hwy. 26, you'll miss it...

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Florida sommelier shares déjà vu from tasting Zinfandel from Lodi's oldest planting

Louis Anthony Chico, a visiting Orlando, FL sommelier getting a firsthand experience last year's Lodi Zinfandel harvest in Jessie's Grove's Royal Tee Vineyard

Last week Louis Anthony Chico, a sommelier living in Orlando, FL, wrote to us saying he had just experienced a déjà vu. It came upon tasting a 2016 Alquimista Cellars Jessie's Grove Lodi Zinfandel while listening in on a recent Zoom virtual tasting broadcast from Lodi's Jessie's Grove estate, led by Alquimista Cellars winemaker Greg La Follette and Jessie's Grove owner/grower Greg Burns...

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Snoop Dogg releases an important wine, and it's from Lodi!

It's not so much what the label on the 2019 19 Crimes Cali Red ($12) says than what it projects: the iconic face of the long celebrated rapper, Snoop Dogg, in muscular black and tan, with slashes of inky red and black marking pen. It practically screams "drink this wine... if you've got the guts."

So I did. The color is a deep, opaque purplish-ruby with a bright red outer rim. The aroma mixes black tea, dried herbs, a touch of tobacco/smoke, and red and black berryish fruits. But while "big" in the nose, on the palate the wine is soft, round, almost cuddly. And it has what many of the wine cognoscente would describe as a "jammy" finish — code words for super-fruity, or slightly sweet. Not super-sweet like a dessert wine, but just sweet enough to cushion the ripe fruit and generous oak sensations, keeping it from completely drying out the mouth with tannin. Like drinking chocolate cake. 14.1% alcohol, which is about par for any commercial California wine (these days many of the state's finest Pinot noirs are higher than that)...

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Patrick Cappiello's Monte Rio Lodi reds bring back Old California with a vengeance

Monte Rio Cellars' Patrick Cappiello

There is an unusual sense of "nakedness" in the immediacy of fruit and whiffs of tea leaf-like dusty/earthiness to the just-released 2019 Monte Rio Cellars Primitivo. Something strange for a California wine, but very deliberate for this particular wine brand which proclaims itself (on its website home page) devoted to the "Spirit of Old California."

That is to say, a style of wine harkening back to, perhaps, the 1950s or early '60s, when California vintners were not yet hooked on the taste of oak, and 12.5% alcohol was the norm rather than rare exception...

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