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.
ZinFest’s Vintner’s Grille menu
Each year, the Lodi ZinFest‘s Friday night Vintner’s Grille at the Lake is a special affair when you can mix and mingle with Lodi’s finest winemakers and growers, while watching the sun sink into Lodi Lake in its customary spring blaze of violets, blues, reds and oranges. Then comes the crisp, cool air of our Lodi evenings in May, the stars shimmering over the mirrored water… magic! This year’s Vintner’s Grille takes place on May 13th, 2011 at 6-9 PM, and the dinner menu is a Delta inspired, zin-friendly feast that you do not wish to miss: Tomato & basil..
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Apr 29, 2011 at 8:52 PM
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The 2011 ZinFest Cooking School
Foods and wines we really love at the ZinFest Cooking School… In addition to the ZinFest Wine School at Lodi’s ZinFest Wine Festival taking place this coming May 14 in Lodi Lake Park, wine lovers may enjoy delectable tastes of the region’s wine country cuisine under the tent of the ZinFest Cooking School. There’s a lot to be said about accessibility in a sensory sense, and everyday affordability. One of the joys of the lush, juicy, pure and fruit forward qualities characteristic of wines grown in the Delta is their ease with foods that we all actually love to eat…..
Continue » Apr 27, 2011 at 9:04 PM
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East vs. west side 2010 Zinfandels
Winemakers who have been working with Zinfandel vineyards grown on both the east and west sides of the Lodi AVA (i.e. American Viticultural Area) have long known that there are some differences between the wines, despite overlapping characteristics reflecting the pretty much consistent Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta influenced macroclimate and soil types found in Lodi. Just within the heart of the Mokelumne River AVA, where the vast majority of Lodi’s heritage plantings (Zinfandel vines 30 to over 100 years old) are located, there is enough variation of Tokay sandy loam in the soil to make an impact. Many of the..
Continue » Apr 22, 2011 at 9:09 PM
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Lodi at the California Wine Festivals
Lodi is invading the beautiful, sun splashed seaside towns of Southern and Central California! No less than 10 of Lodi’s finest wineries will be present and accounted for at the 2nd Annual California Wine Festival, which takes place in two outdoor venues, on two sets of dates: the first, in the laid back, sea salt scented, Surf City atmosphere of Doheny State Beach in Orange County’s Dana Point (April 29-30, 2011); and the second, in chic, sophisticated Santa Barbara (July 14-16, 2011). Orange County alone is home to over 3 million people; many of them with a growing thirst for..
Continue » Apr 20, 2011 at 9:14 PM
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Ripken makes DIY, unconscious wines
Indoors Out‘s Dean & Derek builds it, and all the more reason to come to the Ripken family’s winery… In real life, contractors don’t arrive on Friday and leave you the following Sunday with a gleaming, new, 2,000 foot outdoor living area, complete with a 40×18 foot arbor, wet bar and fire pit. But this is television, and it’s also Lodi’s Ripken Vineyards & Winery — where you always find a rusted metallic pig with angelic wings proudly flying high on a pole because, as Richard “Rip” Ripken is fond of reminding everyone, “they said Lodi would make good wine..
Continue » Apr 13, 2011 at 9:32 PM
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The ZinFest commemorative bottling
Artist Vince McIndoe and m2’s Layne Montgomery create a memorable ZinFest bottling… Each year the Lodi ZinFest commissions one of the region’s most respected wineries to blend a commemorative label ZinFest bottling from their finest cuvées. In years past, Michael~David, Macchia, St. Amant and Klinker Brick have had that privilege, and this year m2 has those honors. What does Garrison Keillor have to do with whipping up a great Zinfandel in Lodi? For Layne Montgomery, m2’s winemaker/proprietor, it’s a matter of “making things better.” As we sat down this past March to taste the separate components going into the 2009..
Continue » Apr 11, 2011 at 9:46 PM
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ZinFest School’s savory lesson plan
The ZinFest Wine School at Lodi’s ZinFest Wine Festival, taking place this coming May 14 in the lush riparian setting of Lodi Lake Park, will offer wine lovers a picnic basketful of opportunities to learn while you savor the vinous bounties of Lodi. For instance, have you ever wanted to experience the task of a winemaker, blending wines sourced from different vineyards or barrels to make the best possible wine? Michael Perry, a 25 year veteran in the wine industry (and Direct to Consumer/Wine Club Manager of m2 Wines), will start the school off by helping you blend your own..
Continue » Apr 8, 2011 at 9:53 PM
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The amazin’ codgerly !ZaZin
He’s a poet, he’s a picker, sings Kris Kristofferson in Pilgrim. A walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction… Since 1992, winemaker Patrick Campbell has been pickin’ grapes outside of his home vineyard/estate atop Sonoma Mountain, working with old time Lodi family growers to produce a wine he calls REDS: a red wine, of course, and one that has set a quality standard for $10-$12 retail priced wine with its remarkably consistent balance of qualities associated with Zinfandel, Carignane and Petite Sirah culled from Lodi’s old vine, heritage plantings. Hence, the wine’s original mottos, “REDS – a wine for the..
Continue » Apr 2, 2011 at 9:58 PM
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The most voluptuous Lodi zin of all
Is there such a thing as a “classic” Lodi Zinfandel? Good question, because in many cases, the style of a winemaker or winery certainly does trump sensory qualities often associated with vineyard sites. Michael~David’s Earthquake Zinfandel, for example, has become somewhat iconic: consistently black as night, big in alcohol, muscular in tannin, and yes, as strongly oaked (pungent vanillin/smoky aromas and flavors) as they are in richly ripened, jammy mixes of black and red berry fruitiness. At the almost opposite end of the scale, Michael~David’s 7 Deadly Zins is usually fairly light and soft, lower in tannin and oak,..
Continue » Mar 24, 2011 at 10:17 PM
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Lodi Tempranillo takes the cake
Who is that gaucho, amigo, why is he standing there in your spangled leather poncho? Suddenly Lodi has a shiny new wine producing specialist in town; although not totally “new,” because he’s been nursing wine grapes here since the late nineties, at the far western edge of Lodi’s Clements Hills AVA, where the Mokelumne River flows from the Sierra Foothills through rolling, idyllic 400-600 ft. hills topped with alluvial soils on clay loams. Nevertheless, the just released 2008 Dancing Fox Old Father Vine Clements Hills Tempranillo ($25) represents winemaker/proprietor Gregg Lewis first varietal bottling of this grape; and in a..
Continue » Mar 22, 2011 at 10:23 PM
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