October 15, 2011: The WINE IN 2 WATER Concert, Art & Wine Tasting at Jessie’s Grove Dancing Fox winegrower/proprietor and restaurateur Gregg Lewis has combined efforts with a counterpart, Greg Burns of the historic Jessie’s Grove Winery, to produce WINE IN 2 WATER: a charity concert, wine tasting and art demonstration benefitting the Bear Creek…
“Forecast calls for rain, but local grape growers aren’t panicking,” reads the headline in today’s Lodi News-Sentinel. In fact, vintners are thinking the opposite: their outlook on the 2011 Lodi harvest thus far is positively positive — as if the skies were still crystal blue and absolutely cloudless. It all comes down to grapes: the…
Lodi Wine Country returns to San Francisco Bay this coming Saturday, October 8, 2011 (1 to 5 PM) at the Treasure Island WineFest, where over 45 of Lodi’s finest producers will be pouring over 200 Lodi AVA grown wines. Advanced purchase tickets are now on sale at tiwinefest.com for $55 (tickets at the door are…
Uvaggio’s Jim Moore is bullish on Lodi’s two most exotic varietal whites… There has always been something of a Don Quixote in Jim Moore, winemaker/proprietor of Uvaggio, the winery formerly known by its full name, L’Uvaggio di Giacomo (“Jim’s grapes”). How else can you explain his impassioned, solitary crusade to turn the country on to…
Still plenty of respect for Merlot among Lodi winegrowers… Bart: If fairytales have taught us anything, first wives are the best and second wives are terrible. Homer: Just the opposite of real life… – The Simpsons How soon we forget the finest things. Not too long ago, Merlot was the go-to wine for the majority…
Up until last week, Tim Holdener (winemaker/proprietor of Macchia Wines) tells us, there were some fears that “yields might be down as much as 50%.” But now that he has gotten in his fastest ripening vineyards this past week – including the dry farmed Leland Noma’s and “Oblivious” next door, yielding as little as half-a-ton…
12 Lodi grown grapes that are changing the face of American wine… I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s… I will not reason and compare: my business is to create… –William Blake The grape makes the wine; but of course, so does the imagination and handiwork of the vigneron. Over the…
What a difference a grape makes, indeed… Of all the major and cutting-edge varieties of Vits vinifera grown in California today, Syrah is the only wine grape Lodi doesn’t crush more of than any other region (Fresno beats out Lodi in Syrah acreage). Here are the sensory profiles on the other grapes of significance (other…
The grape makes the wine, no matter where it’s grown… As discussed earlier in our Wine 101 installments, the grape variety (or varieties, if the wine is a blend of several grapes) is the single most significant factor differentiating the taste of wines. Producers in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and South America make it…
Remember the name Kidder Family Winery, because this is one of Lodi‘s rising star producers. It’s not a simple matter of newness; nor even sheer talent, which winemaker/proprietor Aaron Kidder has aplenty. If anything, it’s a matter of Mr. Kidder having a strong sense of emerging contemporary tastes — particularly in respect to wines that…
August 31: Lodi celebrates International Tempranillo Day Have you ever tasted good Tempranillo? If so, you experienced a soulful, sumptuous, mouth-filling red wine, as soft and sensuous as velvet. Its qualities tend to be more tactile than aromatically delineative, yet typically conjuring sensations of black fruits steeped in earthen spiced liquids; tinged with wispy smoke…
A commonsense approach to wine and food matching We’ve mentioned some commonsense wine and food matches; like the fact that zesty, dry white wines like Sauvignon Blanc are as natural with white fish as a squeeze of fresh lemon. Or the fact that it makes sense to serve a full bodied, full tannin red wine…
Wine glasses make a difference Aside from choosing what wine to drink, there is probably no choice as key to your enjoyment of wine as your selection of wine glass. Everyone knows that wine glasses properly come with a stem, are crystal clear for visual pleasure, and are curved inward to allow the nose to…
Lodi’s 3rd Annual Treasure Island WineFest Lodi Wine Country returns to San Francisco Bay this coming Saturday, October 8, 2011 (1 to 5 PM) at the Treasure Island WineFest! Over 45 of Lodi’s finest producers will be pouring over 200 Lodi AVA grown wines, including many of the 133 winners at this past 2011 San…
How to taste wine, without the gobbledygook… ‘Tis a far, far easier thing to do than what it’s been made out to be. Tasting wine is just like tasting food, except it involves a liquid in a glass, and getting accustomed to a process involving Seeing Swirling Smelling Sipping As Yogi Berra might have said,…
A family’s history of farming and excellence The decision to establish Mettler Family Vineyards as a brand and winery was, indeed, a “family decision,” says Adam Mettler. There is a lot of lineage as well as huge amount of talent associated with the name. Start with Adam Mettler, who is not only the family winemaker,…
A case for a natural approach to Lodi winemaking… Odisea Wine Company was one producer that really stood out at the TAPAS (Tempranillo Advocates Producers & Amigos Society) Grand Tasting at San Francisco’s Fort Mason this past June (for an accounting from the Lodi perspective, see this report in Culinary Wine & Food Adventures). There…
How wines get their color The pigmentation of wines comes from the skins of grapes they’re made from. White wines are usually produced from light, green skinned grapes, and red wines from dark, black skinned grapes. The actual juice of most varieties of vinifera is colorless. Therefore, it is entirely possible to make a pink…
Lodi’s award winners at the 2011 California State Fair Three outstanding Lodi wines will be singled out in an awards ceremony at the California State Fair’s Taste & Celebrate the Best event, this coming July 29, 2011 at the California State Fair in Sacramento. The honors and recipients: Best of Lodi White: 2010 Abundance, Lodi…
De plan, de plan… Over the next few weeks we plan to devote one blogpost per week covering some basic aspects of wine, from how vineyards effect quality and style to, simply, how to taste wine and enhance its enjoyment. Yes, we’re talking “basics,” but we promise: we’re not going to dumb it down for…
Spelling out what makes Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel special… Last weekend on July 9, Lodi was the American Viticultural Area featured by Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (a.k.a. ZAP) at its first ever annual Rib-O-Rama, taking place at Rock Wall Wine Company in Alameda, along the foggy banks of the San Francisco Bay. Rock Wall is…
An authentic French style celebration at Lodi’s Wine & Roses Ah, the outdoor communal tables attended by long white aproned servers, steaming bowls of saucissse de Toulouse (pork sausages) and ratatouille passed under rays of a fading summer sun sifting through verdant Van Gogh greenery, with the tinkling of glasses filled with kir, Lillet blanc…
Fields Family joins Downtown Lodi’s growing, vibrant culinary scene A couple of weeks ago Fields Family Winery quietly opened their brand new tasting room in Downtown Lodi at 20 N. School St.; right across the street from the Cellardoor (the urban home of the Michael~David, Jessie’s Grove, Van Ruiten Family and Bokisch Vineyards wineries), and…
Enjoy great wine, music and friends at Galt’s historic landmark The Lodi AVA is as much about the history of its families — many still working the farms and ranches established since the late 1850s — as the incredible strides evident in the quality of its wine grapes and increasingly acclaimed wines, now enjoyed all…