2016 was another major award winning year for Lodi

Oak Farm Vineyards, producer of multiple award winning Lodi grown wines in 2016 (photo courtesy of John Curley Photography)

While Lodi grown wines are more popular than ever, the region’s growers and vintners have certainly not stopped to rest on their laurels. They are well aware that consumers have a choice of many wonderful wines from elsewhere in California and all around the world.

Their goal, of course, is not just achieving a competitive or industry leading quality level, but also to continue to define what makes Lodi grapes and wines unique... special. What is it about the region that cannot be duplicated in any other part of the world? What makes Lodi wines different, and more desirable, on a sensory level? The more we tell this story, the more we increase the value of Lodi grown grapes, and the growing prestige and demand for Lodi grown wines produced by wineries within and outside the region.

You need not look far, though, to find proof of Lodi’s increasingly competitive, pro-active edge: the many accolades and awards garnered by growers and producers just over the past calendar year...

Dec 20, 2016 at 12:00 PM Permalink

Ultimate Christmas case: the 12 most "Lodi" wines of 2016

Ancient Lodi Zinfandel

For Christmas, what do you give a Lodi wine lover who has tried most everything?

Our suggestion: a case of 12 Lodi grown wines, each showing what Lodi does best. And what Lodi does does great – generally from grapes more conducive to warm, steady Mediterranean climates and exceptionally deep sandy soils – it does as well or better than just about any other American wine region. That is to say, wines that are gentle, fresh, filling yet friendly, with a purity of fruit expression from beginning to end. If that's your cuppa, Lodi is for you!

Dec 16, 2016 at 6:00 AM Permalink

Viticultural consultant Stan Grant talks about Lodi growers' "quiet revolution"

Stan Grant of Progressive Viticulture

Lodi has become synonymous with generous, expressive wines; many readily available at exceptional, value-range prices, and more and more of them crafted by smaller specialty producers in classic artisanal styles. None of this came out of nowhere. It represents a culmination of labors, organization and advances generated primarily in Lodi's vineyards, which now add up to easily the largest acreage of premium wine grapes in the U.S.

Vineyard consultant Stan Grant has played a small part in this growth; enough to be able to articulate it, at least from a viticultural perspective. We met with him last week (early December 2016) in Den Hartog International Farms – a vineyard owned and farmed by Pieter Den Hartog, located in the north-west corner of Lodi’s Mokelumne River AVA...

Dec 12, 2016 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Aaron Shinn foresees a bright future for Lodi winegrowing

Lodi vineyard manager Aaron Shinn

One of the most highly regarded, and more forward thinking, of the Lodi Viticultural Area’s winegrowers is Aaron Shinn: Vineyard Manager for Round Valley Ranches, one of the region’s largest vineyard management companies; and owner of his own management firm, Shinn Farms.

Like any vineyard manager, Mr. Shinn’s talents are measured by results. For instance, Chad Joseph, the vaunted winemaker of note at Oak Farm Vineyards as well as Harney Lane Winery, described Shinn’s work as “energy, passion and knowledge.” Joseph elaborates by saying, “A lot of growers have the knowledge, but very few have the energy and passion it takes to attend to all the little details necessary to grow grapes with the potential to produce world class wine...

Dec 7, 2016 at 1:00 PM Permalink

Rippey Family wines embody everything wonderful and innovative about Lodi

Rippey Family Vineyards' Tyson Rippey

The Rippey Family Signature

Even most true-blue Lodi wine lovers have yet to catch on to Rippey Family Vineyards, who produce and show their wines at the site of Lodi Vintners, north of the City of Lodi (technically in the CDP of Acampo) along the railroad tracks where they are bisected by Woodbridge Rd. This is a historic spot, dating back to 1900. It is here that Urgon Winery was built to serve as Lodi’s first growers’ cooperative, in response to monopolistic prices set by El Pinal Winery, which dominated the San Joaquin Valley wine industry at the turn of the last century...

Dec 2, 2016 at 1:40 PM Permalink

Poetry in early Lodi autumn mornings

There is nothing like a late November walk through Lodi vineyards at the break of dawn; when vines are shrouded in ghostly fog, over a lush, green carpet soaked in numbing dew (waterproof boots recommended).

From afar, the dying leaves on the vines might look depressing – curled up or burnt crisp, another year of life on the wane – but up close, each leaf might also beguile the senses. As poets are apt to put it, there is beauty in death; particularly in cloaks of yellow, flames of orange, or rivers of blood-red color on gnarled spurs and trunks of more ancient vines. Who doesn’t find joy in such loud and violent cacophony?

Nov 28, 2016 at 5:00 AM Permalink

The best wines with turkey

Can we talk?

Ready for the one-hundred-millionth article on what wines to serve with your Thanksgiving turkey? Heck, we’ve composed a good half-dozen ourselves; and yes, we always recommend Lodi grown wines – but for real, practical reasons, not just wishful thinking.

This fact, to begin with: the beloved turkey is as bland a centerpiece as anyone could possibly choose for a meal considered to be the meal of meals in American life. Why do you think, other than the occasional turkey sandwiches or carnival drumstick, the vast majority of us eat turkey only once a year? It’s not like, every other weekend, we can’t wait to get home and pop a turkey in the oven. We eat, or enjoy, turkey mostly under duress.

Nov 20, 2016 at 3:00 AM Permalink

Meet Wendy Brannen, Lodi Winegrape Commission's new Executive Director

Wendy Brannen, Lodi Winegrape Commission's new Executive Director

This past October Wendy Brannen crossed the country from her longtime home in Washington D.C. to Lodi to assume her new position as Executive Director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission – the organization representing more than 750 winegrape growers and 85 wineries in the Lodi American Viticulture Area, a large number of them belonging to families who have farmed in the region for over 50, 100, or even 150 years...

Nov 18, 2016 at 6:00 AM Permalink

Lodi Winegrape Commission Celebrates its 25th Anniversary

The last five years have seen a tremendous swell of support and recognition for the Lodi wine region, most notable being the receipt of the coveted title of 2015 Wine Region of the Year from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. This success could not have happened, however, without the dedication and vision of the region's winegrowers and the grower-established and funded Lodi Winegrape Commission. Lodi's winegrowers are what sets the region apart and truly makes it special. In Lodi, there is an intense sense of cooperation among its winegrowers and the non-competitive belief that "a rising tide lifts all boats."  Continue »

Nov 17, 2016 at 10:06 AM Permalink

A Lucas family Lodi Thanksgiving

Mitra and David Lucas (the father/daughter team behind The Lucas Winery)

Mitra Lucas – the “owner and daughter” of Lodi's The Lucas Winery and its founder/grower David Lucas – has many fond holiday memories growing up in this groundbreaking, certified organic estate, established the year she was born in 1978.

Ms. Lucas tells us: “The Lucas family’s Thanksgiving tradition has always been to invite more family and friends to dinner than we could possibly have room for. And so, since 1978, we have always held Thanksgiving dinner in our old barn which would transform, for one magical evening, into an exquisite dining hall filled with music, warm food, and the comfort of family and friends...

Nov 15, 2016 at 6:00 AM Permalink