Estate Crush’s new, sparkly iteration of Lodi’s venerated Bechthold Vineyard Cinsaut

In early April 2019, Estate Crush's rows of 133-year-old vertical cordon Cinsaut at the north end of Lodi's historic Bechthold Vineyard

How do you describe the latest wine produced by Lodi’s Estate Crush, Downtown Lodi’s custom crush facility (serving over 60 winery/clients, on top of wines sold under its own brand)? The 2018 Estate Crush Lodi “Carbonated” Cinsault Rosé ($26) is so many things that it is practically “ironic,” as Alanis Morissette once sang, citing a slew of things that can go wrong, and often do go wrong, in our workaday-to-wonderful lives.’’

The wine itself is unabashedly spritzy and positively exudes strawberry/cranberryish fruit in a perfume of remarkably fruit centered purity and in its light, razor-sharp and zesty-prickling sensations, bracing the palate with just a whisper of residual sugar (barely half a gram)...

Apr 11, 2019 at 1:00 PM Permalink

Michael Klouda’s mission to “save” Lodi Zinfandel with his dry style Retro Rosé

Michael Klouda Wines' Michael Klouda harvesting Lodi Zinfandel grapes

It’s ba-a-ack. A pale, transparently pink wine made 100% from black skinned Zinfandel grapes – otherwise known as “White Zinfandel.”

Only, this time around it’s a bone dry pink wine – bottled without one, single gram of residual sugar. To hedge his bets, however, Michael Klouda Wines owner/winemaker Michael Klouda is calling his new fangled wine “Retro Rosé.”

Why? Because dry rosé is one of the hottest wine categories in the market today, whereas the White Zinfandel sales are plunging rapidly. Hence, the hundreds of acres of fields with piles of pulled-up vines – many of these, vineyards planted over 50 years ago – that locals have been seeing all over Lodi during the past three years...

Apr 7, 2019 at 6:00 PM Permalink

Spring flings and liquid danger at 2019 Lodi Wine & Food Festival

2019 early spring bud break in Lodi wine country

At the cusp of spring, wrote the poet Marge Piercy, the months become a "rich fresh wine," into which we stagger "smeared with pollen," when “the green will never again be so green, purely and lushly.”

As a more sobering harbinger of events, The Old Farmer's Almanac prognosticates on the upcoming 2019 weather: “Raindrops won’t be falling on heads (as often) in many parts of the U.S., with below normal precipitation expected in the Atlantic Corridor, Appalachians, and Intermountain regions, as well as in the Desert Southwest, Pacific Northwest (including California), Pacific Southwest, and western Hawaii...”

Apr 4, 2019 at 3:00 PM Permalink

The “no-oak” rebellion at Lodi’s Acquiesce (and history of barrel usage since ancient Roman days)

Acquiesce Winery tasting room, housed in a refurbished 100-year-old barn

The re-opening of Acquiesce Winery’s tasting room – which usually happens after about four months of a “winter slumber” – has become something of a yearly rite of spring for many a Lodi wine lover. Owners Sue and Rodney Tipton welcomed the first of their 2019 visitors and loyal club members just this past weekend (March 15-17).

Close followers of Acquiesce wines are very well aware of why the winery needs to shut down for a third of each year: because the wines – representing a fairly small production, 100% grown and produced in the Tiptons’ own home vineyard – are virtually sold out by November of each year! That’s what success will do for you...

Mar 26, 2019 at 10:00 AM Permalink

The past, present and future usages of head trained vines in Lodi

Classic 8-spur head trained vine in Burness Vineyard on the east side of Lodi's Mokelumne River AVA

In the 1850s and 1860s, when pioneering growers first began planting wine grapes in Sonoma County, Napa Valley, the Santa Cruz Mountain area, Amador County and, of course, the Lodi Viticultural Area, they planted their vines as free-standing plants – with no trellis wires, just one supportive stake per vine – in a fashion known as "gobelet."

Gobelet literally translates as “goblet,” in reference to the virtual shape of the vine: classically, a trunk topped at no more than a foot or two from the ground, crowned by eight (give or take) “spurs,” which are shortened canes kept as permanent arms positioned around the top (i.e. “head”) of the trunk. In this style of cultivation – said to date back to the ancient Egyptians and Romans yet still commonly practiced throughout Southern France and Spain – most of each year’s growth is pruned back during winter months, leaving buds or nodes at the top of each spur for the growth of typically two new canes in early spring...

Mar 22, 2019 at 7:00 AM Permalink

Spring, glorious spring in Lodi wine country!

Spring pruning of old vine Zinfandel in Stampede Vineyard (Clements Hills-Lodi AVA)

Okay, so it’s still a little gray out there, and the ground has not yet completely dried up from the winter rains (but hey, water!), on the first day of spring – or the vernal equinox (as of Wednesday, March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere), when day and night are just about equal in length – here in Lodi wine country.

But if you look closely, buds are just beginning to break out in the fields and vines, and in our annual bushes and trees. That means something, doesn’t it? It’s a yearly reconfirmation of life, just when we thought winter would never end (or rather, as it’s often seemed in recent years, just when we were wondering if we somehow overslept and missed “winter” completely)...

Mar 20, 2019 at 10:00 AM Permalink

Sacramento Bee’s Mike Dunne shares honest feedback on Lodi's latest wines

The Sacramento Bee's Mike Dunne, judging in The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition's sweepstakes round (photo courtesy of Eric Degerman/Great Northwest Wine)

Mike Dunne is one of those newspapermen whose unimpeachable creds as a published wine pundit were established roughly in the Stone Age. That is, when The Rolling Stones were still considered a voice of “youth” (who knows what you should call them now).

Mr. Dunne officially “retired” from The Sacramento Bee in 2008 after working for this flagship McClatchy daily as a food editor, restaurant critic and wine columnist for some 30 years. But like the Stones, he just never goes away. Instead, he continues to regularly file his impeccably composed “Dunne on Wine” columns at the Bee, covering every conceivable wine region from Washington and Oregon to Chile and Australia, every nook and cranny of California and much of the “old country” in Europe as well. His interests, and therefore insights and erudite commentary, are decidedly global. Plus, as a professional wine judge, Mr. Dunne’s services are in demand up and down the West Coast, and beyond (for a short time, Dunne also served as head judge for the venerable California State Fair)...

Mar 14, 2019 at 8:00 AM Permalink

Mountain Tides succeeds with one grape (Petite Sirah), inaugurated with Clements Hills-Lodi fruit

Mountain Tides winemaker/owner Scott Kirkpatrick at Clements Hills-Lodi's Viñedos Aurora Vineyard

There are plenty of American wineries founded with the intention of specializing in one grape, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir or Zinfandel. There is a much smaller handful hanging their hats on grapes like Tempranillo, Syrah, Mourvèdre or Grenache. But Petite Sirah? That may take some guts.

And there is one, based in Napa, sourcing most of its Petite Sirah fruit from... Lodi!

Mar 12, 2019 at 9:00 AM Permalink

Why half of LODI RULES sustainable vineyards are now located outside of Lodi

View of Vino Farms' Grand Vin Lands - a showcase LODI RULES for Sustainable Winegrowing vineyard - through one of its meticulously cultivated, bio-diverse insectories

Lodi is known for its heritage Zinfandel and, increasingly, its huge diversity of grapes and wines (over 100 commercially grown varieties, by recent count). Where else in California can you say, for instance, you can find more brands of Albariño and Tempranillo than Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon?

You can also think of the Lodi Viticultural Area’s place in the American wine grape industry in the same way you think of Salinas Valley, which is often called the nation’s “salad bowl.” Salinas Valley doesn’t grow all of the country’s lettuce, spinach and broccoli, but it easily grows more of that than any other single agricultural region...

Mar 8, 2019 at 2:00 PM Permalink

New things (and incredible values) afoot at Oak Ridge Winery

Oak Ridge Winery's new, talented winemaker Noel Basso, with one of the few remaining old vine Zinfandels planted by Rudy Maggio in 1952

There are a few new things afoot at Lodi’s Oak Ridge Winery, which is good news for wine lovers who appreciate a good $10, $12, $16 or $18 wine. And who in their right mind doesn’t appreciate a good $10 to $18 wine? Man does not live by fancy-schmancy $100 wine alone.

While Oak Ridge Winery was founded in 2002, its Lodi ties go back a long ways. The winery sits on the10-acre site of the old East-Side Winery, one of Lodi’s historic old co-ops once operated by as many as over 100 growers at a time, specializing in fortified sweet wines (which was what most of America drank when it came to “wine” up until the late ‘60s). Today, the historic feel of Oak Ridge Winery is reinforced by a visit to the winery’s tasting room, which is housed in a beautiful 50,000-gallon redwood tank that used to be part of the long-defunct Roma Wine Co. facility located across the street...

Feb 26, 2019 at 4:15 PM Permalink