Lodi's dry rosés are lighter, zestier, herbier, more food-versatile than ever

Harney Lane owner/grower Kyle Lerner brings on the bone dry Lodi rosé

When recently tasting through the latest bottlings of dry style rosés grown in Lodi, we could not help but notice a few common threads, despite the variety of grapes from which the better ones are crafted...

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Up-in-smoke barbecue and sommelier-led wine school experiences at ZinFest

Entrée to ZinFest Wine Festival in Lodi's bucolic Lodi Lake Park

Next month's Lodi ZinFest Wine Festival (Saturday, May 14, 12-5 PM) will be chock-full of opportunities for Lodi wine lovers experience things they love most (like barbecued foods and wines) or to expand their wine knowledge with the guideance of two of the state's most respected sommelier/educators, under the cozy tent of our ZinFest Wine School.

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The old Mondavi home in Lodi is still an artistic hub

The unmarked former home of the Mondavi family near the center of Downtown Lodi

Lodi artist and businessman Tony Segale – who has also been profiled by Lodi News-Sentinel as “Lodi’s best-known sign painter” – lives in the original, longtime home of the Mondavi family, just two block west of Downtown Lodi’s main drag (School Street).

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The love-in of diversity at Lodi ZinFest

Lodi Lake Park entrance to 2015 ZinFest

ZinFest Wine Festival – by far, Lodi’s biggest yearly event – is just a motion away: Saturday, May 14, 2016 (12-5 PM), taking place on the lush, dreamy peninsula between Lodi Lake and the Mokelumne River, where towering oaks, willows and riparian brush and birdlife set the table for a natural love-in feel to this vinous experience.

This may be called ZinFest; but as thousands of wine lovers discover each year, the Lodi Viticultural Area is all about far more than Zinfandel. Lodi has evolved into a magnet for the newest generation of grape connoisseurs who, frankly, have grown tired of conventional varietals and bigger-than-thou (or high “scoring”) attitudes.

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Fields Family's wines epitomize the best of boutique handcrafting

When Lodi's Russ Fields and Ryan Sherman first got together to start making wine back in 2005, you could well describe the endeavor as your classic two-guys-with-day-jobs-and-extra-time-and-a-tub-of-grapes-on-their-hand situation. Mr. Sherman looks back on their first three vintages as “mad scientist” days; telling us: “We had no formal background, training, experience or reference points other than our own. So we did dozens of trails... just being curious, trying to learn, figure shit out for ourselves without anyone else’s protocol or dogma.”

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Women of Lodi's wine industry: Grape exec Amy Blagg

Amy Blagg in her Petite Sirah Vineyard on Lodi's east side

We are continuing our series of profiles on the Lodi wine industry’s most powerful women with a conversation with Amy Blagg, the Executive Director of the Lodi District Grape Growers Association (LDGGA).

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