Continued from The year’s best photos of Lodi wine country (December 2020 to May 2021) June In June the vines go boom, And spread out their leafy green canopies under a sun finally bereft of clouds. July July is a riot of color and sun-fueled energy, As the grapevine clusters are set aglow by violets…
It’s always hard to pick our “favorite” photos of Lodi wine country, but the less said the better about this collection, presented in order of the months and seasonal changes during the past year… December Depending on how you see it, December is the end or beginning of another cycle, As grapevines retire after another…
One of Lodi wine country’s biggest success stories has been LVVR Sparkling Cellars, founded in 2012 by owner/winemaker Eric Donaldson, prompted by the encouragement of four friends who happen to be sisters named Leticia, Vanessa, Virginia, and Rose (hence the name, LVVR). It has been just five years (in 2016) since LVVR first opened its…
The trees say they’re tired, they’ve borned too much fruit Charmed all the wayside, there’s no dispute Now shedding leaves, they don’t give a hoot La-di-da, di-la-di-dum, ’tis Autumn – Henry Nemo, ‘Tis Autumn (most notably sung by Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Stacey Kent) In Lodi, it is well known, grapevines can live…
Today (November 16, 2021) is National Zinfandel Day. We strongly advise you to pull out a bottle of Zinfandel, preferably one grown in Lodi, to celebrate this “all-American” grape with us (while we now know that Zinfandel originated in Croatia, it is in California that the grape has come to excel like nowhere else in…
Thanksgiving — or at least, Thanksgiving food and wine shopping — is upon us as we speak. Not everyone opts for the mythic, traditional turkey dinner, of course. Many families prefer roast beef, lamb, goose, smoked ham, or something different coming out of the oven. After a threatened delay, California’s 2021 Dungeness crab season has…
Understanding the language of wine labels is difficult even for those of us in the wine industry, or among the wine media. A few weeks ago, for instance, a wine writer contacted me and said she was puzzled by a statement made on this page: that many grapes grown in Lodi go into wines labeled…
It’s not like it was a competition. But at the break of dawn of September 11, 2019, two of California’s most cutting-edge vintners harvested grapes from Lodi‘s oldest Zinfandel block, called Royal Tee Vineyard (planted in 1889 by Joseph Spencer), at the very same time. The lowdown on the two winemakers: Steve Matthiasson is the…
Be sure to mark down the weekend of November 13-14, 2021 for Lodi’s sixth annual Lodi Tour of Tempranillo. This year nine of the Lodi region’s wineries that specialize in Tempranillo will open their doors for this self-guided tour. It’s a special event because Tempranillo, a grape that originated in Spain and is generally considered…
Believe it or not, some of the finest red wines to come out of Lodi over the past few years have not been varietal or even single-vineyard wines coming from, say, heritage Zinfandel sites. Lately, it’s been blends of different grape varieties, grown in separate vineyards, that have been the most impressive. Many of the…
Continued from Tokay fine sandy loam, part 1 — the Mokelumne River’s defining natural features Taxonomic profile of Tokay series fine sandy loam Soil series taxonomy in the United States was originally developed by the USDA for the purposes of agricultural advisory. Over 14,000 different soil types have been identified. According to the information on…
The historic environment of valley oaks and grapes Lodi‘s Mokelumne River AVA — an American Viticultural Area (i.e., AVA) established in 2006 by the TTB along with six other Lodi sub-appellations — is defined primarily by one common factor: It’s deep (as much as 90 feet), porous yet high vigor soil, classified by the USDA…
As a follow-up to our previous post on Why everyone loves old vines, some answers to pertinent questions are usually brought up in discussions about old-vine wines… What’s more important, the fact that a vineyard consists of old vines or the advantages of a vineyard’s site? The answer is… both are equally important factors. Almost…
Of all the different sides of Lodi winegrowing, none is more compelling than the region’s old vines. There is beauty, to begin with, it, in the thick, creviced, tree-like trunks of vines over 50 years old, and in their long, sturdy, twisting, muscular arms, or “spurs.” There is beauty in each vine’s story, what we…
Zinfandel is the ideal autumn sipper. Make that quaffer. Why fool around? Why Zinfandel? Because it is one of the few red wines with a propensity for spice qualities in the nose and flavor. By spice, we mean a pungent quality ascribed to an aromatic compound called rotundone, the sesquiterpene (or class of terpenes) responsible…
Last week (September 19-22, 2021) Lodi growers and vintners hosted six wine influencers in a 3-day study of the Lodi wine region. Sometimes it helps to ask someone what they think moments after their experience. Said one of the influencers, L.A.’s Elle Rodriguez, in a video/message transmitted while waiting to leave at Sacramento International Airport:…
Every mid-September through early October, one of the common sights in vineyards in Lodi is pickers loading grapes into 40-pound lug boxes. Next to the vines, the pickers weigh each lug box on scales in order to be as precise as possible. At the edge of the vineyards, on the side of the road, the…
The world is full of myths and legends. Why? Because, evidently, it’s in our nature to be captivated by them. It’s like in Peter Pan… “I do believe in fairies.” It’s especially true when it comes to wine. We want to believe a lot of things about wines because mystique and imagination play as big…
As we come into the middle of Lodi’s 2021 wine grape harvest, it is as good a time as any to focus on three grapes that represent three sides of the Lodi winegrowing industry today: • Innovation • Tradition and history • Terroir 2021 Clairette Blanche grown in Lodi’s Acquiesce Winery & Vineyard. Innovation: Clairette…
Harvest morning this past Saturday, September 4 in Lodi’s historical Bechthold Vineyard, planted to Cinsaut in 1886. Brix and alcohol levels in wines The term Brix (also called Balling) is the name of the system for measuring sugar content in grapes, fermenting grape juices (musts), or finished wines developed by Adolph Brix in the early…
The Assyrtiko grape is pronounced ah-SEER-tee-Koh, according to Jeff Perlegos, a second-generation winegrower of Greek heritage, who farms vineyards on both the east and west sides of Lodi with his brother John Perlegos. When I told Jeff that everything I know about Greeks and Greek culture, I learned from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, he…
I once attended a Hospice du Rhône in Paso Robles — which used to be a yearly (but is now an occasional) celebration of wines for lovers of grapes grown in Mediterranean regions — and I was suddenly struck by a recurring theme voiced by guest vintners who were attending from France’s Rhône Valley, as…
The latest two red wine releases by former Manhattan sommelier, Patrick Cappiello, are both fulfillment of one of his dreams: to produce a style of red wine Italians (and Italian-Americans) drank in copious amounts, which is out of traditional fiascos —the big, fat, straw-covered bottles long associated with wines from Tuscany‘s Chianti region. It’s not…
On the face of it, talking about wines being “balanced” was always perfectly okay. That is, until about ten years ago, when the term suddenly became politicized, like vaccines, gender identities, or anything suggesting “natural.” People started taking sides, and somewhere along the line, the notion popped up that wines over 14% alcohol, or pick…