Have you thought of Scotto Family Cellars lately? Scotto Family Cellars is one of several brands put out by the Scotto family, which has roots in Lodi farming and industries going back five generations. While they are now producing varietal wines from all the popular grapes, such as Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc,…
ZAP — a.k.a., Zinfandel Advocates & Producers — has recently launched it’s The California Zinfandel Trail promotion, and we strongly urge you to embark on this fascinating excursion through what amounts to pieces of California history, entailing the highways and byways leading to the most delicious, and thought-provoking, Zinfandel treasures. Go to The California Zinfandel…
Seis Soles Wine Co. owner/winemaker Christopher Rivera, or just “Chris,” is a man on a mission. He started working at Klinker Brick Winery just seven years ago and quickly worked his way up to the position of assistant winemaker. He wasn’t satisfied with that. Less than four years ago, or as soon as humanly possible,…
The 2019 Neyers Vineyards Vista Notre Zinfandel ($29) is a quintessential Zinfandel and a quintessential Lodi Zinfandel. Aromatically, it is brimming with bright, fragrant, red berry/cherry fruit (very “Lodi” qualities), while also bristling with black peppercorn spice (one of the varietal‘s more distinctive markers). On the palate, it is firm with moderate tannin and zesty…
I’m no Dr. Phil, but after over 40 years of enjoying, writing about, and making a living out of wine, I know a few sensible things that can improve your life immensely. If you happen to be a wine lover. Things are not covered (or else, not fully explained) in most books or online advisories….
Everything coming up rosés It’s that time of year again. Nights are still slightly nippy, with temperatures in the mid-40°, but the days are getting progressively brighter and clearer, with late afternoons hitting the 70°s. In Lodi wine country, this has also become the season of rosés. That is bone-dry, soft yet refreshingly crisp pink…
The Dancing Fox, as the Lodi locals know, has been evolving right before everyone’s eyes. As a restaurant and bakery, it became the go-to place for coffee, breakfast, and lunch, or fresh artisanal, wood-burning oven bread, almost immediately after popping up in 2009, in a renovated, century-old building in the heart of Downtown Lodi‘s brick-lined…
Lodi‘s Stama Winery is not exactly “new,” but it might as well be because it is just now beginning to find its niche — which it has! The winery quietly opened the doors of its winery facility on its 10-acre “home” property nearly six years ago, in May of 2015, on N. Davis Road, just…
Is the Lodi Viticultural Area (i.e., AVA) a Central Valley wine region? Geographically, yes, in the same way, that San Francisco is a city in California, and the same for the City of Lodi. All the same, when you say the name “Central Valley,” you are usually suggesting a flat, arid, desert-like area, even if…
Robert Mondavi as grape and grower whisperer The late Robert Mondavi (1913-2008) was a Lodi Union High School graduate who will always be remembered for significant accomplishments in the wine industry. First, he convinced his father, Cesare Mondavi, a City of Lodi businessman who entered the grape industry during the early 1920s as a grape…
Desperate times call forflash-détente Before our meeting last week to discuss the latest winemaking technology utilized at Lodi’s Lodi Vintners — where brands such as Klinker Brick, Concrete Wine, and Rippey Family are produced — Barry Gnekow sent a note saying, “Don’t expect romantic scenes of rolling hills of vineyards with family dogs and progeny…
What’s In a (Varietal) Name? The term varietal, as the long-departed wine scribe Robert Lawrence Balzer wrote way back in 1948 in his book California’s Best Wines, is actually “an early California idea.” Balzer defined it, simply, as the way of “naming wines after the grape species used in their making,” as opposed to the…
A lot of things have been said and written about the wine term, terroir. Not all of it is good. Just a few years ago a U.C. Davis Professor of Viticulture published a book called Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing (University of California Press). In the book, the professor stated outright that terroir is…
What do Zinfandel and Elvis have in common (read on!) Why are some wines far more popular than others? The other day on a social media post I saw this question posed on my shared thread: Why isn’t Port very popular in the U.S.? First, this is the current Wikipedia definition of Port: “Port wine…
“This holiday [Presidents’ Day] weekend has been super-busy!” proclaimed Frankie Arburua III, the sole proprietor of Lodi‘s F Ewe Sheep Company. Arburua is far from the first sheep rancher in Lodi, but he is the first that has also been established for this additional, specific purpose: to supply a natural, and sustainable, way of farming…
In Silicon Valley Bank‘s yearly State of the U.S. Wine Industry report released last month (January 2021), the focus was on, naturally, the “unimaginable challenges” of 2020. Silicon Valley Bank has served as one of the major lenders to the grape and wine industry over the past quarter-century (its website cites over $4 billion in…
In one of the most recent issues of The New York Times Magazine (January 31, 2021), there is a fascinating article entitled “The Forgotten Sense.” The story addresses one of the most alarming symptoms of those afflicted by COVID-19: the sudden loss of smell. Loss of smell, of course, is as common as, well, the…
“What’s a wine brand to do?” is the question posed by Australia’s CommsClass in a recent post entitled Top Wine Marketing Trends In 2021.” CommsClass is a Melbourne-based marketing blog specializing in wine, food, tourism, and hospitality. As in the U.S., the Australian wine industry has recently turned to brand, marketing, digital, and social media…
ZAP’s Legendary Vineyards/Winemaker Tastings (offered free!) This weekend, January 30-31, 2021, ZAP‘s annual ZinEX tastings will be a “Social Distancing [or ‘Zinstancing’] Experience.” ZAP is Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that has successfully promoted the knowledge and appreciation of Zinfandel — specifically, red Zinfandel — since 1991 when it was founded by…
The good news as of today is that stay-at-home restrictions in California are being lifted CNN report), albeit within the state’s color-coded tier system. Again. Coronavirus infections may be leveling off, but let’s not kid ourselves. As we speak, hospitals are still overrun, and death tolls in California alone are still over 500 a day,…
How does the “outside world” look at the wine regions of Lodi, which were almost unknown to the rest of the world up until the 1990s? Or, in fact, not until after the Lodi Winegrape Commission was formed by the region’s growers in 1991. An interesting perspective can be gleaned through an in-depth report recently…
Continued from Alternative style Lodi wines reflecting the wave of the future — part 1, an unfamiliar white and red The Lodi Native Revolution While subtle changes in consumers’ sensory preferences are bound to be reflected in the proliferating diversity of wines made from alternative grape varieties, we are already seeing these changes in wines…
In our previous post — Discerning wines of the immediate future through what we know about the past and what’s going in Lodi — we outlined three small yet significant changes in consumer tastes that are beginning to emerge, here at the start of the third decade of the twenty-first century. • Growing interest in…
In 2018 Dr. Liz Thach—a Master of Wine and Sonoma State University professor—came out with something she calls the “Wine Palate Life Cycle Wheel,” illustrating the natural evolution of consumer tastes in wine. For full details, visit her article in Wine Business Monthly entitled “Do Wine Consumer Preferences Change Over Time?”. Based upon polling data…