Letters from Lodi
An insightful and objective look at viticulture and winemaking from the Lodi
Appellation and the growers and vintners behind these crafts. Told from the
perspective of multi-award winning wine journalist, Randy Caparoso.
2011, Lodi’s canta y no llores vintage
Lodi winegrowers extol the challenging 2011 vintage This past Saturday (October 29), Barbara Huecksteadt was out in her 3.5 acre vineyard next to her home, hand picking the season’s final two rows of grapes all by herself, as she customarily does each year. The grapes were Marzemino — a rare, spectacularly dark, handsome looking grape that originated in Northern Italy, and produces a black, sturdy, wildly aromatic red wine under Huecksteadt’s Hux Vineyards label. As she snipped and lovingly placed each cluster into her trays, she talked about her year, pretty much summarizing the story of 2011 for just about..
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Nov 3, 2011 at 8:39 PM
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The winery action during Lodi’s First Sip weekend
Celebrate the 2011 Lodi harvest with wine tastings straight from the barrel! The First Sip, Lodi Wine Country’s annual end-of-harvest celebration, is exactly that: over 40 wineries will be opening their doors or tasting rooms and inviting you to enjoy the very first sips from the 2011 harvest — newly born wines, still in their raw, pristine, most rambunctious (and in many ways, most exciting!) splendor. How many wine regions offer you that kind of opportunity? Many of these wineries will also be offering tastes of unbottled 2010s and 2009s, as well as their latest bottlings, just being released.
Continue » Nov 1, 2011 at 9:11 PM
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Flash of new insights into Lodi wine
How Barry Genkow and Flash Détente’s new technology helps us an understand an old concept One of Lodi’s finest wines is m2 Wines’ Soucie Vineyard Zinfandel; which, vintage after vintage, is distinguished by an almost European quality that can only be described as earthy, loamy, and often mushroomy. M2 winemaker/proprietor Layne Montgomery often likens this wine’s distinctive complexity to the smell of “onions cooked in a beef stew.” Because you cannot find this particular quality in Zinfandels grown in other parts of Lodi’s Mokelumne River AVA – demarcated by the flat, deep, rich sandy loam soils planted by the original..
Continue » Oct 27, 2011 at 9:22 PM
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Lodi launches LoCA campaign
Lodi, CA (October 19, 2011) – If you see the word LoCA in an advertisement or billboard over the next few months, don’t worry — Lodi’s growers and wineries have not gone crazy. They’re simply telling the world how thrilled they are about the wines they produce, and how much they love sharing a taste of their life in Lodi — such an ideal place for grapes and people. LoCA is code for Lodi, California, and the growers and wineries in the Lodi American Viticultural Area want consumers to know exactly where that passion comes from: a tradition of farming..
Continue » Oct 19, 2011 at 9:39 PM
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Lodi harvest in October 2011
We often forget that wine is basically an agricultural product, which is why any winegrower will tell you: Mother Nature always has the last word. Even so, sometimes it has nothing to do with weather… Last week, as he was out in the fields analyzing Cabernet Sauvignon grapes being grown for the Mettler Family label, Adam Mettler noticed a few rows with grape bunches completely stripped of berries. “We are constantly battling Mother Nature in some blocks,” says Mettler, “but in this case, the culprit wasn’t rain or temperature… these rows were eaten by turkeys!” Otherwise, the story of the..
Continue » Oct 17, 2011 at 9:47 PM
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Harmony’s Pipe Dreams zin rolls in
When you take a tub of grapes and ferment it with the yeast that has grown naturally on their own skins, you are incorporating the vineyard’s indigenous microbiology. If those grapes happen to be Zinfandel grown in Lodi, the resulting red wine will not necessarily compare to other wines made from Lodi grown Zinfandel – you may like others better. Yet it is more likely to taste like the best possible wine made from that vineyard because you’ve allowed the grapes’ own yeast to play a part in the wine’s fermentation, and ultimately its flavor. The family at Lodi’s Harmony..
Continue » Oct 14, 2011 at 9:53 PM
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Treasure Island winefest memories
Kodakchrome clear blue skies, perfect wine sipping temperatures, and precisely parallel white vapors trailing soaring Blue Angels like a hexagram of the heavens, the strings of Snap Jackson’s guitar, high, low, hither and yon across the San Francisco Bay: these were but some of the highlights of Lodi’s 2011 Treasure Island WineFest this past Sunday, October 8. So were the savory or achingly tender cheeses of artisans like Fescalini, Sonoma and Nicasio Valley — oh, what happy cows can render — and sweet nothings by love gangstas like Truffle Gateau and Desperately Seeking Chocolate, not to mention the virginal California..
Continue » Oct 10, 2011 at 9:57 PM
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The Wine in 2 Water benefit concert
October 15, 2011: The WINE IN 2 WATER Concert, Art & Wine Tasting at Jessie’s Grove Dancing Fox winegrower/proprietor and restaurateur Gregg Lewis has combined efforts with a counterpart, Greg Burns of the historic Jessie’s Grove Winery, to produce WINE IN 2 WATER: a charity concert, wine tasting and art demonstration benefitting the Bear Creek Water Project and Living Water International. The Bear Creek Water Project is a foundation endeavoring to save the lives of children (one dies every 15 seconds from preventable, water-related diseases) through raising money by recycling plastic bottles and aluminum cans to cover the cost of..
Continue » Oct 7, 2011 at 10:28 PM
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Lodi’s “perfect storm” in 2011
“Forecast calls for rain, but local grape growers aren’t panicking,” reads the headline in today’s Lodi News-Sentinel. In fact, vintners are thinking the opposite: their outlook on the 2011 Lodi harvest thus far is positively positive — as if the skies were still crystal blue and absolutely cloudless. It all comes down to grapes: the varieties that are most susceptible to bunch rot – Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (yes, Lodi grows a significant quantity of Pinot Noir, too) – are pretty much all picked as of today. As much as an inch of rain is expected to fall during..
Continue » Oct 4, 2011 at 10:32 PM
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27 reasons to be at Treasure Island fest
Lodi Wine Country returns to San Francisco Bay this coming Saturday, October 8, 2011 (1 to 5 PM) at the Treasure Island WineFest, where over 45 of Lodi’s finest producers will be pouring over 200 Lodi AVA grown wines. Advanced purchase tickets are now on sale at tiwinefest.com for $55 (tickets at the door are $65, and just $25 for designated drivers). Here’s your chance to experience the best of Lodi in the spectacular setting of Treasure Island off the picturesque Bay Bridge — one great reason for you need to be there… and here are 27 more: An Abundance..
Continue » Sep 27, 2011 at 2:16 PM
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