How Lodi defies climate-related assumptions

Borden Ranch in the Lodi appellation, a wine region in which warm climatic conditions are utilized to optimal advantage.

Boy, it's been a hot July. Everywhere. This, ironically, following an unusually cool month of June in Lodi wine country. In fact, a cooler than normal first six months of the year. Whatever the case, everyone's talking about climate change, even outside political contexts. It doesn't matter what you think. There have been significant shifts in climate.

In respect to viticulture, during the past ten years no one has written more about the impact of climate change on the winegrowing industry than Dr. Gregory V. Jones, a renowned Oregon based research climatologist who is now the CEO of Abacela Winery (an industry leading Umpqua Valley estate founded by the professor's parents, Earl and Hilda Jones). For constantly updated, fascinating reads, look up Dr. Jones' highly detailed Weather and Climate Summary and Forecast...

Jul 25, 2023 at 12:00 PM Permalink

Perch Wine Co.'s first Lodi releases add to the growing number of independent handcraft producers looking to Lodi for alternatives

Adam David Saake was born and raised in Sacramento, and has never moved. After nearly 40 years, it is still the center of his universe.

He has, however, moved around just far enough to get a taste of the bigger world of wine grapes and products. Enough, you can say, to make a rational decison to specialize in grapes grown closer to his backyard, in Amador County and the Lodi winegrowing region.

You can also say that for a winemaker with only two real commercial vintages under his belt, Mr. Saake has achieved a modest degree of notoriety. There must be a reason. Is it the wines, his obdurate homie status, the fact that he is an upstart, teeny-tiny producer? Has he actually "paid his dues," or does that really matter? Whatever the case, here is his story...

Jul 20, 2023 at 9:00 AM Permalink

Images, songs and odes to an unforgettable wine country summer

Sunlight on dried moss on ancient vine Zinfandel during a Lodi summer morning.

Summer of 2023 may very well go down as your most memorable. If you live your life to its fullest, like a cup of the world's greatest wine, of course you will never forget it. Memories, as it's said, are made of this.

Like catchy songs, touching poems, and wine country photos that just scream... summer! Our rendering...

Jul 17, 2023 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Illustrated timeline of Lodi's grape history

1941 Lodi Grape Festival Queens proudly showing off the region's reigning grape at the time, the legendary Flame Tokay.

This past week we were asked by the San Joaquin County HIstorical Society to summarize a history of Lodi appellation grapes at their yearly "Past, Present & Future" event... within five or ten minutes. Impossible, of course, but the thought process did give us a good excuse to draw up a 175-year timeline of this history...

Jul 14, 2023 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Lorenza's sublime, new style of red made from Lodi's oldest vineyard

Melinda Kearney among ancient Cinsaut vines in Bechthold Vineyard, source of Lorenza's groundbreaking style of red.

Two months ago, at a dinner in Lodi where a guest winemaker from Italy named Cristiana Tiberio was showing off her world renowned Cerasuolo D'Abruzzo Rosé, I watched Lorenza Wine winemaker/owner Melinda Kearney, sitting across from me at the table, going through the usual studious tasting motions. After her first sip, her eyes looked like they were emitting superhero laser beams, and then a meditative smile took over her face, lasting the rest of the entire night...

Jul 6, 2023 at 2:00 PM Permalink

2023 California State Fair has a surprise Best Zinfandel of California winner from Lodi

Mark Chandler: Lodi grower/winery owner and California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition Chief Judge.

Here's a good story: For the past eight years Mark Chandler—the former Executive Director of Lodi Winegrape Commission (1991-2011) as well a past two-times Mayor of the City of Lodi—has been serving as Chief Judge of the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, the state's longest running professional wine judging (started in 1854!).

The Chief Judge, as it is, is also a Lodi region grape grower, and has recently started up his own wine brand, Burlington Chandler Wines, with his wife Jan Burlington Chandler and his son Dave Chandler.

Jul 3, 2023 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Global encompassing The Old Vine Registry launches, with 53 Lodi AVA vineyards

Marian's Vineyard Zinfandel, quintessential Lodi AVA old vines planted in 1901.

Today (June 26, 2023) marks the official launch of The Old Vine Registry (re oldvineregistry.org). This is a big deal. As it states on its home page, The Old Vine Registry is "the world’s first crowd-sourced global database of living historic vineyard sites." Its goal, "to create the world’s most authoritative record of these vineyards in the hopes that through greater awareness and attention these vineyards and the wines they produce will survive and thrive."

In this morning's internationally broadcasted webinar announcing the website's debut, renowned British author and Master of Wine Jancis Robinson remarked on how The Old Vine Registry grew "out of an Excel spreadsheet started 13 years ago, and grew and grew until it became impossible to manage... we decided it should have its own website—one that is free and open to all, and can continue to grow organically..."

Jun 26, 2023 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Origins of Tempranillo in Spain and California, and the varietal's pervasive Lodi styles

Tempranillo clusters in Bokisch's Las Cerezas Vineyard in Lodi's Mokelumne River appellation.

A consummate Mediterranean varietal

While still a distinct minority taste, American grown bottlings of Spanish grapes have carved out a modest niche in the domestic market over the past ten, twenty years. In Lodi, even more so: Local wineries are currently producing more bottlings of, say, Albariño and Tempranillo than Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Why? Because grapes of Spanish origin have found a natural home in Lodi's Mediterranean climate zone. Zinfandel, for instance, is a grape that originated in Europe's Mediterranean Basin (Croatia and Southern Italy, to be specific), and therefore is a grape that absolutely loves Lodi's bright sun and sandy soils. Ergo, there is far more Zinfandel grown in Lodi than in any other region in California...

Jun 22, 2023 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Discerning the pervasive styles of Lodi Albariño

Albariño clusters in the Bokisch family's Las Cerezas Vineyard, Mokelumne River-Lodi AVA.

Some Lodi Albariño history

Back around 2005 when Kyle and Jorja Lerner were first drawing up plans to establish their Harney Lane Winery on the Lodi property that their family, a branch of the Mettlers, had been farming since 1899, they approached Jorja's parents George and Kathy Mettler with the proposal.

The elder Mettlers gave their okay, but Kathy had one stipulation: "You have to make Albariño"—referring to the white wine grape of Spanish origins to which Kathy had taken a strong liking...

Jun 19, 2023 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Lodi's McCay Cellars explores the wilder, meatier, savory side of dry rosé

McCay Cellars owner/grower/winemaker Mike McCay showing his current line-up of dry rosés.

Thirteen years ago Mike McCay produced his first dry rosé from Lodi-grown Grenache grapes under his McCay Cellars label. 

That wasn't long ago, but at that time the vast majority of consumers were still in their Chardonnay or White Zinfandel stage. If you drank red Lodi wines, you mostly drank overly fruited or oaky Zinfandel. The wine industry, if anything, has always aimed to please, but it's only been recently that consumers have been pleased by dry style rosés. Thirteen years ago, most vintners couldn't give those wines away.

So what's a rosé-crazy winemaker to do, now that dry rosé has become such a popular wine category? If you're Mike McCay, you start producing five or six different rosés each year. This, mind you, is not normal. Even giant sized wineries in Southern France—where more dry rosés are grown, produced, sold and consumed than anywhere else in the world—typically bottle just one brand-defining rosé...

Jun 13, 2023 at 8:00 AM Permalink