A new (or is it old?) definition of wine balance

Popular wine influencers learning about Lodi Zinfandel by tasting them "blind" (from left, Casleah Herwaldt, Lexi Stephens, Desiree Harrison-Brown and Jamie Knee).

A wine can be described as "balanced" when all its sensory qualities are in harmony, without excess of one element or another. That is to say: Acidity is balanced when a wine is neither too puckery nor so soft that it lacks freshness or crispness. Tannin is balanced when the wine is not unpleasantly bitter or astringent. Body is in balance when alcohol does not taste harsh or hot. Aromatic qualities — such as oak, herbiness or fruitiness — are all subjective to a beholder's ability to perceive them, which depends upon the volume of a person's "taste memory," as the late Michael Broadbent MW famously put it...

Apr 13, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Why wine is tasted with your brain, not your palate

A sommelier making full use of her senses and brain to assess and enjoy a Zinfandel in the vineyard in which it was grown.

The role of perception in food and wine production

When you taste wine, are you using your eyes, nose and mouth? Obviously, yes. However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that you are not so much using sensory receptors as your actual brain, because it's the brain that tells you how everything tastes. Your nose and mouth are simply the instruments used by your central nervous system to interpret sensations. This fact has a huge impact on how we perceive wines, and thus how wines are grown and made...

Apr 7, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Mission — the historic varietal that refuses to die

Lodi's Somers Vineyard — old vine Mission planted right alongside the winding Mokelumne River.

One of the most interesting things to happen in the Lodi appellation just over the past three, four years is the sudden popularity of an 18-acre vineyard called Somers. Ten years ago the owners of Somers Vineyard couldn't give their fruit away because it produces a transluscent, light red wine (barely 12% ABV) with a low fruit profile and absolutely no tannin backbone. Before that, the only people interested were grape concentrate producers.

Yet the Somers Vineyard is a beautiful site, located right along a bend of the Mokelumne River. The plants themselves, with roots dipping into the water table, are tall, rather majestic, vertical cordon trained vines with tree-like trunks, planted some 50 years ago. The problem was, the vineyard is planted to Mission vines, a grape variety from which the California wine industry has been trying to run away for over 170 years...

Apr 5, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

The women winemakers of Lodi (part 3 — our incredible up and coming talent)

Continued from The women winemakers of Lodi (part 2 — are male winemakers from Mars and women winemakers from Venus?)

Industry disproportions

To start part 3 of our series on Women Winemakers of Lodi, let's talk about the evolving role of women in the wine industry. It is progressing, but not fast enough. 

In a recent article entitled The Role of Women in an Evolving Wine World, it was pointed out that as much as 60% (depending on the poll) of wine consumers in the U.S. are women. More impressively, continues the article, "about 60% of the graduates from the Viticulture and Enology program at U.C. Davis are women, but only 10% of the winemakers working in California are women, only 4% of the wineries in California are owned by women, and women working in wine-related professions earn less than the men..."

Mar 29, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink

The women winemakers of Lodi (part 2 — are male winemakers from Mars and women winemakers from Venus?)

Continued from The women winemakers of Lodi (part 1)

The differences between the sexes

Salary discrepancies and gender/job pigeonholing are as much a part of the challenge of today's women winemakers as they are for women in all American industries. This does not preclude the basic fact recognized throughout the wine industry: That lead women winemakers, where they are to be found (an estimated 14% of winemakers in California), are incredibly skilled. A lot of this skill, it would appear, is built into the DNA of females.

When you go online, to begin with, you are bound to come across articles alluding to the fact that women make great winemakers because the sensory abilities of women in general are more finely attuned than that of men. That is, the average woman is capable of smelling and tasting a few more things than the average man, hence giving women a leg up in the sensory department...

Mar 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM Permalink

ZAP is back! And a history of Zinfandel in Lodi

Zinfandel cluster harvested from 1940s block on the west side of Lodi's Mokelumne River appellation.

After a two-month delay due to (you guessed it) another Covid surge, Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (a.k.a., ZAP) will be holding its 2022 ZinEX Grand Tasting in San Francisco on this coming Saturday, March 26. For Zinfandel lovers of the world, this event is the holiest of holy days of obligation. If you want to find out where California Zinfandel is now at in terms of style and the varietal's typically compelling deliciousness, this is the place to be... 

Mar 21, 2022 at 3:00 AM Permalink

The women winemakers of Lodi (part 1)

We can't let Women's History Month slip completely by without highlighting the modest yet growing number of women winemakers specializing in Lodi appellation-grown wines.

The old adage is undoubtedly still true: That for a woman to succeed in a business traditionally dominated by men, a woman has to be twice as good as the average man. Which is not to cast aspersions on Lodi's fantastic male winemakers, but we do know this: Our women winemakers are doing fantastic work. Some, we daresay, are currently making some of the finest, if not the finest, wines in Lodi.

The social significance, we believe, is that a growing number of women means the wines we are enjoying are, slowly but surely, being made by people who look like the proverbial "you and me." Recent statistics reported by Wine Business, in fact, show that female wine consumers in the U.S. still outnumber male consumers 55% to 45% (these figures have held true since the 1960s)...

Mar 16, 2022 at 10:00 AM Permalink

What wine lovers really want

Visiting Forbes correspondent Alissa Fitzgerald paying respects to a Lodi ancient vine (Bechthold Vineyard), finally getting its due after over 100 years of being ignored or unwanted.

What do wine lovers want?

On one hand, every other day there seems to be a new "natural wine bar" popping up in cities big and small, near (Sacramento and San Francisco) and far (Miami and New York). 

Yet on the other hand, America's best selling wines are still, by far, the average-$10 brands — made in predictable styles that are the very opposite of "natural" or "artisanal" — that you can find on the shelves of every supermarket or big box store in the country...

Mar 10, 2022 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Lodi's women-driven Maggio family successfully enters the high-tier wine market

The Maggio women representing Oak Ridge Winery's new leadership (from left): Raquel Maggio-Casity (General Manager & Partner), Lisa Kammerer (Partner), and Shelly Maggio Woltkamp (Brand Ambassador & Partner).

Perhaps the biggest changes since we last visited Oak Ridge Winery three years ago is that this east side Lodi winery is now owned by one family — the Maggios recently bought out all of their former partners and investors — plus the fact that it is now, effectively, operated almost entirely by women.

Rudy Maggio, who still heads the family operation with his three daughters, had given us fair warning when we spoke to him three years ago. Said Maggio, at the time, “We may be a longtime, five-generation Lodi family, but we’re constantly updating. Like all successful companies, we've learn from mistakes, and the important thing is that we’ve been getting better and better each year...”

Mar 7, 2022 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Best of Class award tops off Mikami family's heroic history

Mikami Vineyards owner/grower Jason Mikami with his daughter Kate, hand-numbering each and every one of the Mikami label bottles. Photo courtesy of Mikami Vineyards.

At this past January's San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, a total of 12 Lodi-grown wines were selected as Best of Class winners. "Best of Class" means exactly that: After judging all the wines, judges select their favorites in each class and price category

The 2019 Mikami Vineyards Lodi Petite Sirah ($35) was named the 2022 Best of Class winner for Petite Sirahs in the $35-$39.99 price category.

Petite Sirah as a varietal generally appeals to wine lovers with a penchant for big, dark, bold and even blustery red wines. But increasingly, over the years, we have noticed that the biggest and boldest wines are not necessarily chosen as Best of Class winners. Mike Dunne — the former Sacramento Bee wine columnist who also compiles the official tasting notes for the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition — has made note of the fact that the 2019 Mikami Petite Sirah is "an extraordinarily sleek and lively" example of the varietal... 

Feb 22, 2022 at 7:00 AM Permalink