The latest Mettler Family Vineyards release is the 2012 Mettler Family Lodi Aglianico ($40); an estate grown red wine of vivid purplish cast, teeming with intensely focused cherry and plum pie-like aromas, tinged with licorice and finely polished vanillin oak subtleties. Plump, full and zesty on the palate; with a layered feel furnished by round…
In seminars at the 2014 Zinfandel Advocates & Producers Experience (i.e. ZAP) in San Francisco this past January, some of California’s top sommeliers presented Zinfandels from their perspective: in terms of terroir, or “sense of place.” Why terroir; and not, say, varietal character? The Zinfandel grape produces red wines that, more than others, are usually…
Six Hands Winery has just released a 2013 Six Hands Cresci Vineyard Lodi Chenin Blanc ($16) that is as dry as a desert, yet gushy in varietal perfumes of wild honey, green melon, white flowers and underlying minerality. On the palate, the first impression is a lemony crisp snappiness, followed by a silky smooth glycerol…
At Lodi‘s Tin Roof BBQ it’s all about barbecue. Gloriously meaty, outdoor-smoky, not-too-fatty and not-too-sweetie barbecue, which is exactly the way that owner/chef Richard Berardi likes it. Mr. Berardi started up Tin Roof BBQ nine years ago on Guild Avenue in the east side of town as, strangely enough, someone who didn’t like barbecue. “I’m…
Oh, lord… Although it was the “B” side of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 single record, “Bad Moon Rising” (which peaked at No. 52 on the Top 100 singles charts), in many ways the song “Lodi” has endured as one of the group’s catchiest, most memorable tunes – its story line (being “stuck” in a nowheresville…
This past June 14, 2014, when the California State Fair announced the top awards resulting from its famously rigorous wine judging taking place in Sacramento each year, one Lodi winery loomed significantly among the winners: Lodi’s Michael David Winery. Michael David’s two awards: • “Best Petite Sirah” – 2012 Michael David Earthquake Lodi Petite Sirah…
Who’d have thunk? That a planting by a retired Lodi schoolteacher and longtime home winemaker would become the largest, most serious collection (over 40 cultivars!) of German and Austrian grapes in the U.S. The grape bug took a big bite out of Bob Koth in the early nineties, when he and his wife Mary Lou…
I can’t quite put words to why I am profoundly comforted by the fact that a wine can also be a place, that mere fermented grapes can coalesce into a product of such rare beauty and meaning. – Randall Grahm (owner/winemaker, Bonny Doon Vineyard) To many of the growers and winemakers in Lodi today –…
You see it in films, fiction, music, reality television, and even in the wine world: everybody loves the scruffy character with the countenance of youth and artistic soul, even when it comes with forgivable hints of bravado or brashness. Enter-stage-left, Morgan Twain-Peterson, owner/winemaker of Bedrock Wine Co. in Sonoma Valley. Over the past six, seven…
Jillian Johnson is in love. There’s not much that her husband (Yuri DeLeon) can do about it, since this is an affair that dates back to 2004 – some nine years before she even met Mr. DeLeon – when Ms. Johnson was still the head winemaker at Bonny Doon Vineyard, based in Santa Cruz. Johnson’s…
Lodi‘s most celebrated wine at the moment is not a Zinfandel; nor is it a fashionable Albariño or Tempranillo. It is a (drum roll, please…) a varietal white wine made from the Torrontés grape! Torrontés is fairly rare in California – the only Golden State grower cultivating it with serious commercial interest is Ron Silva…
Wine has often been called a combination of art and science; and in our culinary schools, cooking is accurately described as a “food science.” This does not mean that you have to be a brain surgeon to really understand food, or the way wines and foods go together. But it does help to have a…
One of the more interesting things to come along over the past year have been the “Seven % Solution” tastings popping up here and there. Originally conceived by a Healdsburg wine retailer, the 7% is in reference to the idea that 93% of the wine grape acreage in California’s North Coast consists of just eight…
GRANDMA AND GRANDPA HAD IT RIGHT Summer is three weeks away (June 21, 2014); but lately, it sure has felt like it has already arrived. Time was, when the weather caught fire, wine lovers would suddenly reach for ice-chilled bottles of fizzy Portuguese rosés in cute little bottles that could be turned into cheesy lamps…
The 2010 Viñedos Aurora Don Victor Lodi Reserva de la Casa ($39) is a deep, dark, brawny and rippling red wine; produced from Cabernet Sauvignon (60%) and Petite Sirah (40%) sourced completely from the 40-acre Clements Hills-Lodi AVA vineyard farmed by the four Anaya brothers – Victor Jr., Ramon, Armando and Gerardo. Despite the Don…
Who comes to Lodi for its annual ZinFest? At least 4,000 devotees of Delta grown grapes each year. To be more specific, Lodi wine lovers coming from as far away as Florida, Texas, New York and Colorado; plus, in 2014, exactly 38 of them from Vancouver, Canada… For Warren Lemcke, a Deputy Police Chief in…
At ZinFest Wine Festival, Lodi grown wines set the stage, the towering weeping willows and ancient valley oaks make the scene, and the green, green grass of Lodi Lake Park makes for a one, giant, lush, pillowy carpet for your feet, which you always find movin’ with the groovin’ of the music that fills the…
Wine tasting is fun; and good wine, sipped in healthy moderation, stimulates both mind and body. And so naturally, good wines also perk conversation, ushering moments of eloquence or, at the very least, some semblance of sanity in our lives – just the thing to unwind, tune in, and drop out, if only for a…
The 2014 Lodi ZinFest Wine Festival, taking place next week Saturday, May 17, will be funner and more educational than ever! First, have you ever wondered what would be the perfect, healthy salad for Lodi grown Zinfandel? Better yet, one made with chocolate? Chef Tony Lawrence, the “Global Wine Chef” of A Chef For You,…
The ZinFest Wine Festival on Saturday, May 17, 2014 will be an opportunity to taste over 200 wines representing the incredible diversity of winegrowing going on in the Lodi American Viticultural Area. We mean that figuratively, of course. Please don’t taste all 200+ wines – we don’t want to carry you out on a stretcher….
For the Love of Culinary Grapes Do you enjoy alternative style wines veering off from the usual heavy handed, ripe or oaky style typical of “California” wine? Then you should seriously consider attending the Grand Wine Tasting sponsored by TAPAS – that is, the Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society – this Sunday, June 27,…
“Lodi proves to be perfect for Albariño,” is the heading of Bokisch Vineyards‘ latest blog on their Web site. “The Albariño grape is originally from the Rías Baixas wine region in Galicia, Spain,” they go on to explain; “an area that is characterized by wet, foggy winters and mild summers. Not necessarily an obvious choice…
At the Lodi ZinFest Wine Festival taking place in the pristine riparian setting of Lodi Lake Park on Saturday, May 17, 2014, Lodi wine lovers will have the opportunity to taste and discover for themselves what the fuss is all about concerning the Lodi Native™ Zinfandels, which made their debut at the end of March….
Lodi ZinFest is celebrating its 10th year in 2014. The beautiful, mysterious “red headed girl” depicted in each year’s ZinFest poster is making only her eighth appearance; but now, what would any ZinFest be without her? The ZinFest posters are the brainchild of artist Vince McIndoe, who is currently living in Korea. If the artwork…