PRIE Vineyard's road to discovery of new grapes and wines ideal for Lodi's Mediterranean terroir

PRIE Vineyard & Winery owner/grower/winemakers John and Lisa Gash.

It was only ten years ago when PRIE Vineyard & Winery's John and Lisa Gash moved from Livermore Valley to join the Lodi winegrowing community by purchasing a home and 8.5-acre vineyard on Alpine Rd. previously planted to Cabernet Sauvignon. They built a spiffy, new winery with a 2,000-case capacity—the most they originally planned to produce—and a cozy tasting room (opened to the public in 2015) that eventually proved to be so inadequate that they now do their tastings outdoors, under the shade of their towering oaks.

That wasn't the only thing that didn't go exactly according to plans. The major changes actually have more to do with an evolving approach, or philosophy, pertaining to winemaking and wines in general. "It's been a 10-year project," explains Mr. Gash, "switching out from Cabernet Sauvignon to other grapes, particularly Rhône varieties which stand a better chance of withstanding the heat, the water conditions and global changes in weather we're now experiencing..."

Aug 31, 2022 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Why Turley is bonkers for Lodi grapes

2011 old vine Zinfandel harvest in Turley Wine Cellars' Dogtown Vineyard, in Lodi's Clements Hills AVA.

This article is a rewrite of an article (including all the original photos) first posted on this site on September 11, 2011. It has been adjusted to reflect 2022 circumstances, although most of the original content is being resurrected because the points that were made are as salient today as they were in 2011.

The makings of California’s top cult Zinfandel

Among California’s prestige producers of Zinfandel, Turley Wine Cellars is undoubtedly the one accorded the most “cult” status: Coveted with almost religious fervor by Zinfandel lovers to the point where they often pay ridiculous prices for them. Although Turley has dependably released its wines at suggested $30 to $60 retail prices, demand is such that they are often traded or re-sold for twice those prices, or more...

Aug 22, 2022 at 9:00 AM Permalink

Lodi's early August harvest—a busy first week for alternative style producers

The 2022 Lodi harvest is on (!), starting with Chenin blanc picked to produce a sleek, dry, contemporary style of white wine.

The second week of August 2022—August 10 through 17 to be precise—was a busy time for a certain type of grape grower, and certain types of winemakers, sourcing from the Lodi appellation.

There was a time when virtually no one picked in the first two weeks of August. Except for sparkling wine producers, who need grapes with lower sugar levels and higher acidity to produce wines going through first and secondary fermentations... 

Aug 17, 2022 at 2:00 PM Permalink

A picture postcard history of Lodi, past and present

Early 1900s colorized picture postcard depicting grapes arriving at Stockton's El Pinal Winery, a winery founded in 1858 that contracted many of Lodi's growers all the way through the 1930s.

Postcards, according to historians, have been utilized as a form of communication since 1848. The first private commercial postcards, printed without any images, were printed up in Philadelphia in 1861. Usage of postcards quickly spread around the world; it was in France, in 1870, when the first picture postcards appeared.

Some of the most compelling historical records of the history of Lodi winegrowing are images captured in postcards. Although many of us, to this day, still enjoy the tradition of purchasing and mailing out postcards to family and friends wherever in the world we may travel—including the irony of getting back home to see the recipients of our colorful greetings even before the cards arrive in the mail—the "Golden Age of Postcards" is said to have been between 1890 and 1915...

Aug 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM Permalink

Impact of phylloxera on Lodi's vaunted old vines and their natural defenses

Illustration of the effects of phylloxera on grapevines.

Own-rooted vs. grafted old vine growths

The defining attribute of Lodi's Mokelumne River Viticultural Area is its sandy loam soil, classified in the Tokay series. The appellation's dependably warm, sun-soaked Mediterranean climate has just as much impact, and this watershed area's location between the snow masses of Sierra Nevada and the wetlands of Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has given farmers plenty of access to water for well over 100 years...

Aug 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM Permalink

Why LODI RULES sustainability is as natural a fit in Lodi as it is around the world

Growing international acclaim

This past month, the Lodi Winegrape Commission's Stephanie Bolton, PhD, talked about the recent reception of the LODI RULES for Sustainable Winegrowing program at the 2022 International Cool Climate Wine Symposium in Ontario, Canada:

"The crowd’s reception was incredible. I couldn’t stop smiling. It was a packed room full of enthusiastic listeners from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and elsewhere. The audience had so many questions at the end of the hour presentation that I was shooed off the stage so we didn’t take more time away from the next presenter... 

Aug 2, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Ser's Bechthold Cinsaut adds mystique to Lodi's multi-generational wine culture

Ancient vine (planted in 1886) Cinsaut in Lodi's venerated Bechthold Vineyard.

While in our last post we talked a out how old vines—which we define as plants over 50 years old (and in Lodi, many of them are over 75 or 100 years old)—are still largely unappreciated by most of the American wine drinking public (see Learning to love Zinfandel and saving old vines in the process)...

Jul 28, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Learning to love Zinfandel and saving old vines in the process

July morning among ancient vine Zinfandel on the east side of Lodi's Mokelumne River appellation.

Over the past five, ten, twenty years Lodi growers have been faced with a dilemma: The ever-increasing cost of farming and labor shortage has made cultivation of heritage, free-standing, head trained vines—vineyards that require the most amount of work by hand—less and less economically sustainable (see our 2019 blog, The past, present and future usages of head trained vines in Lodi).

Most of Lodi's head trained plantings consist of Zinfandel. Nearly 5,000 acres of these vineyards have recently been uprooted, replaced primarily by almonds, walnuts, or higher demand grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon. Some of these vineyards were very old, planted before the 1970s; although most of the Zinfandel plantings that have bit the region's sandy dust were planted within the past 40 years, primarily to supply the once-dominant but rapidly dwindling White Zinfandel market...

Jul 25, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Little Trouble Wine Co. is brewing hands-off, one-of-a-kind Zinfandel field blends

Little Trouble Wine Co. owner/winemakers Jennifer Reichardt (left) and Sara Morgenstern in Lodi's Stampede Vineyard.

Women winemakers of like minds

Jennifer Reichardt and Sara Morgenstern, co-owner/winemakers of Little Trouble Wine Co., emanate joy and sensibility. You can taste this in their wines, hear it in their story, and see it in their faces. They are like a breath of fresh air in this day and age of cold, calculating wine companies, doing business as usual, producing the same ol' wines for mass market tastes.

Reichardt and Morgenstern met in 2016, after discovering a number of mutual loves—particularly, as they put it, for "bright, fresh wines, low intervention vineyard practices and fluffy dogs"—they began "dreaming," sometimes "joking," about starting a wine label together. This did not happen, though, until 2020, when the opportunity to purchase Zinfandel field blends from Stampede Vineyard, located in Lodi's Clements Hills AVA, came up...

Jul 18, 2022 at 8:00 AM Permalink

An Outlier Grenache captures the essence of Lodi's Mediterranean terroir

Grenache clusters in the Acquiesce Winery estate.

Breaking out of a white-wine-and-rosé-only identity

Over the past twelve years, Acquiesce Winery's stock and trade has been estate grown white wines made from Southern French white wine grapes, plus one dry rosé made from the black skinned Grenache grape. This has held the brand in perfectly good stead. Owner/grower/winemaker Sue Tipton, in fact, was recently named "Woman Winemaker of the Year" at the 2022 International Woman's Wine Competition. This, as the name of the event implies, is out of all the immensely talented women winemakers in the world. It's a big deal.

One year ago Tipton brought on an assistant winemaker, and heir apparent, by the name of Christina Lopez. We profiled Ms. Lopez in the first of our three-part series on Women Winemakers of Lodi, where she is quoted to say... 

Jul 14, 2022 at 9:00 AM Permalink