A new, different, exciting style of ancient vine Lodi Carignan

Lorenza's Melinda Kearney with ancient vine Carignan in Lodi's Rauser Vineyard, planted in 1909.

Ancient vine Lodi Carignan, 2.0

Lorenza Wine—owned and operated by the mother/daughter team of Melinda Kearney and Michèle Ouellet—has recently released their first red wine sourced from Rauser Vineyard, an own-rooted, east side Lodi vineyard planted in 1909 primarily to Carignan, with small amounts of interplanted Alicante Bouschet and Zinfandel.

The 2023 Lorenza Rauser Vineyard Mokelumne River-Lodi Carignan ($36), however, consists entirely of Carignan. What is noteworthy is how this wine came about, resulting in a totally unique style of this varietal red...

  Continue »

With their new Heleje brand, the Des Voignes family turns culinary dreams into dreamy contemporary wines

Chefs Jake and Shauna Des Voignes in their kitchen with their newly released Heleje wines.

Once upon the time there were two career chefs who met in a super-fine big city restaurant, got married, worked their fingers to the bone. 

Some would say it was a perfect combination since she was a pastry chef and he an executive chef, so it was match made in culinary heaven. Dishes and dessert, right?

But it really wasn’t. So they packed up and retreated (as Eva Gabor used to sing, goodbye city lights!), three kids and all, to her original home in Lodi. He continued to labor, as Executive Chef and later as Food & Beverage Director of the tony Wine & Roses Hotel. Once settled into life back in the country, however, they connected one of the family occupations—grape farming—with a passion that had been simmering, just waiting to ignite, all along during their restaurant careers: Wine. What could be more natural?

  Continue »

Lodi grown wines shine at Historic Vineyard Society In the City tasting

Historic Vineyard Society sign marking Lodi's Marian's Vineyard, also recently named the 2025 Vineyard of the Year (for the entire state of California) by the California State Fair.

At the Historic Vineyard Society In the City tasting in San Francisco this past May 10, 2025, 42 wineries or brands presented a surprising variety of wines (not just Zinfandel!) sourced from some 65 vineyards certified by the non-profit organization known as the Historic Vineyard Society (a.k.a., HVS).

Since its founding in 2011, HVS has been fighting a seemingly uphill battle to preserve the state’s most historic vineyards. Sites going into wines more widely known, in the commercial wine world, as “Old Vine" wines...

  Continue »

Michael McCay talks baby backs

McCay Cellars's Michael McCay barrel smoking his dry rub spiced baby back pork ribs.

Lodi is made for barbecue

The weather is warming up, folks, hitting the 80°s although in Lodi wine country we’re still enjoying those cool Delta breezes. Time to get out of the house, enjoy the rays of sun and cook up some barbecue!

For years now, Lodi winemaker/grower Mike McCay of McCay Cellars has made the perfecting of one of his personal specialties—dry rub seasoned smoked baby back pork ribs—one of his goals in life. I’ve had it enough times to know that he’s got it down. He can probably smoke ‘em in his sleep...

  Continue »

Lodi captures Best of Show and numerous Golds at State Fair, what happens in wine competitions and age-old thoughts on wine appreciation

Blind tasting of Lodi reds.

A Lodi wine is named #1

First, this just in: The 2025 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition just announced that this year’s “Best of Show Red” is the 2023 St. Amant Winery Barbera, which happens to come from Lodi’s Jahant appellation. It is hard to achieve something as lofty as this—chosen as the best red wine out of thousands of others entered into a wine fair that happens to be the oldest (ongoing since 1854!) and perhaps most prestigious in the country.

Barbera, as it were, is a grape that yields wines of very high acidity, far higher than almost all other black skinned varieties, but in Lodi’s sun soaked environment this acidity finds just the right amount of balance with the grape’s varietal fruit character. That is, when grown in Lodi, the typically high acid of the grape has a way of embellishing the fruit profile of Barbera, rather than taking over with a sharp, palate-prickling tartness...

  Continue »