Lodi’s Bechthold Vineyard is named California’s “Vineyard of the Year”

Autumn in Lodi’s acclaimed Bechthold Vineyard

I can't quite put words to why I am profoundly comforted by the fact that a wine can also be a place, that mere fermented grapes can coalesce into a product of such rare beauty and meaning. – Randall Grahm (owner/winemaker, Bonny Doon Vineyard) To many of the growers and winemakers in Lodi today – now in their third, fourth, fifth or even sixth generation of Delta farming – the fruits of their labors have always been what has tethered their families to this American Viticultural Area, with or without the recognition of their peers in California or elsewhere...

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Sonoma’s Morgan Twain-Peterson talks about his new Katusha Vineyard in Lodi

Morgan Twain-Peterson in his newly acquired Katusha Vineyard

You see it in films, fiction, music, reality television, and even in the wine world: everybody loves the scruffy character with the countenance of youth and artistic soul, even when it comes with forgivable hints of bravado or brashness. Enter-stage-left, Morgan Twain-Peterson, owner/winemaker of Bedrock Wine Co. in Sonoma Valley. Over the past six, seven years Mr. Twain-Peterson has emerged as one of California's wunderkind winemakers, with one of the most distinctive feels for terroir. In the beginning, because of his promising bloodline, as the son of Ravenswood founder/winemaker Joel Peterson; and with that, access to many of the most...

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New to cellardoor: the dangerously delicious Onesta Wines

Jillian Johnson at Lodi’s cellardoor

Jillian Johnson is in love. There's not much that her husband (Yuri DeLeon) can do about it, since this is an affair that dates back to 2004 – some nine years before she even met Mr. DeLeon – when Ms. Johnson was still the head winemaker at Bonny Doon Vineyard, based in Santa Cruz. Johnson's object of affection is Lodi's Bechthold Vineyard, planted completely to Cinsaut grapes. The 25-acre Bechthold has become one of California's most venerated vineyards because it is the oldest continuously cultivated planting in Lodi: originally planted in 1886 by Joseph Spenker; and today, owned by Spenker's...

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The latest, greatest award winning white wine grown in Lodi (Torrontés!)

Wise Villa Winery Torrontés

Lodi's most celebrated wine at the moment is not a Zinfandel; nor is it a fashionable Albariño or Tempranillo. It is a (drum roll, please…) a varietal white wine made from the Torrontés grape! Torrontés is fairly rare in California – the only Golden State grower cultivating it with serious commercial interest is Ron Silva in his Silvaspoons Vineyards, located in Lodi's Alta Mesa AVA – but is the most widely planted white wine grape in Argentina. Up until just a few years ago, the grape was thought to be the same as the variety known as Torrontés in Galicia in...

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The science behind common sense wine and food combinations

Common sense match: powerful reds with aged Portuguese cheese at Silvaspoons Vineyards

Wine has often been called a combination of art and science; and in our culinary schools, cooking is accurately described as a "food science." This does not mean that you have to be a brain surgeon to really understand food, or the way wines and foods go together. But it does help to have a basic understanding of the concepts, which we'll try to put together here… LIKE SEMBLANCE OF FASHION One thing we all know: most of what we comprehend about wines and foods is instinctive – the result of tried-and-true experiences. No one has to explain why a filet...

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Lodi’s thirty-six % solution: delicious wines from less familiar grapes

2013 Verdelho harvest in Lodi’s Silvaspoons Vineyards

One of the more interesting things to come along over the past year have been the "Seven % Solution" tastings popping up here and there. Originally conceived by a Healdsburg wine retailer, the 7% is in reference to the idea that 93% of the wine grape acreage in California's North Coast consists of just eight grapes, going into most of the popular varietal wines sold today: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. However, the Lodi AVA – California's largest single winegrowing region – skews the 7% formulation somewhat. Lodi is steady in multiple...

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