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.
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..
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Mar 22, 2011 at 10:23 PM
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Barbera, the shut-up-and-drink-it wine
A dozen or so years ago a wine/foodie contrarian named Willie Gluckstern came out with a ridiculously cheap (in a good way) $12 book called The Wine Avenger, guaranteeing that you can “become a wine/food genius in one hour.” This was actually an exaggeration: it would probably take a person of reasonable intelligence and functioning eyesight less than 30 minutes to “get” Gluckstern’s basic, on-the-money, plainly spoken premise, neatly summarized in this illustration from Gluckstern’s book: “First, do no harm,” Gluckstern writes, about selecting the best wine for a dish. “Food amplifies everything in a wine. That mean lighter wines..
Continue » Mar 18, 2011 at 10:32 PM
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Akin Tannat is truly like none other
Lodi’s customary cutting edge… Lodi is so far out ahead in many aspects of winegrowing, most folks aren’t even aware of it. Most wine “experts” don’t know either — otherwise, you’d be reading about it in more places. Perfect example: The 2006 Akin Estates, Christesen Vineyard Reserve Tannat — a red wine so bodaciously full, rich and meaty, you can practically eat it with a spoon while savoring its smoky, viscous flavors, redolent of fleshy plums, bing cherry and blackberry, with smidgens of sexy leather and dusty loam. Tannat, we say? Think of a black skinned grape that produces a..
Continue » Mar 15, 2011 at 10:40 PM
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Five Lodi wines outsheen The Sheen
Winner, winner, chicken dinner, says Charlie Sheen. This month, however, members of the Lodi Wine Club have outsheened The Sheen, for they’ve reaped an assortment of five wines that demonstrate the absolute best, the latest, and the most innovative aspects of Lodi viticulture and winemaking. Five tiger blood winners! Please check out our notes on this month’s selection below; for even if you’re not a Lodi Wine Club member, each of these wines are well worth the search, and are available individually either at the respective wineries, your nearest specialty retailer, or at the Lodi Wine & Visitor Center tasting..
Continue » Mar 11, 2011 at 10:45 PM
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Hybrid Pinot Noir is shaking trees
The goal when producing their Lodi grown Pinot Noir, bottled under the Hybrid by Peltier Station label, according to winemaker JC van Staden, was “to make a good wine, not necessarily a Pinot Noir.” Okay, input scrambled, brain freeze… then you swirl, sniff and sip the 2008 Hybrid Lodi Pinot Noir once again, and the inside-information starts to seep in more sensibly: a velvety smooth, plump, pliant, softly delicious burgundian colored wine, but even more amusing in its presumptuousness — a hugely aromatic nose, at once sweetly strawberryish in a perfumed sense, with a smoky richness, nuanced with red rose..
Continue » Mar 9, 2011 at 10:52 PM
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Thou shalt covet Lodi grapes
Six bottled reasons why wineries outside Lodi are craving Lodi grown grapes… Lodi has long been known as a Paradise for wine grapes; the biggest chunk of that traditionally going to large production wineries, or else anonymously into the varietal wines and blends of many an ultra-premium winery (I once heard an industry consultant in the know comment on how many Napa Valley, Sonoma or Mendocino Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots, Zinfandels and even Pinot Noirs have been greatly enhanced by judicious doses of Lodi grown wines like Petite Sirah and Syrah). In recent years, more and more producers of great renown..
Continue » Mar 4, 2011 at 10:56 PM
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The wave of the future in Ironstone’s past
The Kautz Family’s Ironstone Vineyards continues to lead Lodi into the future… Why pay more for a perfectly delicious bottle of wine than you have to? Part and parcel of Lodi’s dramatic emergence as an ultra-premium quality winegrowing region since the turn of the millennium has been the fulfillment of that question. Today Lodi wines not only deliver quality, they overdeliver for the price; and it all starts in the vineyard… Fact #1: Lodi is California’s single largest producer of Vitis vinifera — grapes belonging to the European family of classic wine grapes — simply because these grapes thrive in..
Continue » Mar 2, 2011 at 11:02 PM
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Iberian grapes thrill Fenestra Fanatics
Lodi is the California epicenter for Portuguese and Spanish grapes… Sometimes in life you crave more than vanilla and chocolate. For wine lovers, this means more than Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, or even Pinot Noir and Zinfandel. The recent emergence of Lodi as the epicenter of exotic Iberian grapes — like Verdelho and Graciano, Alvarelhão and Touriga — has been fulfilling many a tired, jaded wine lover’s appetite. When it comes to fine wine, nothing wrong with kinky! Lanny and Fran Replogle of Fenestra Winery have been producing classic California varietals in an historic old winery in Livermore Valley since 1980;..
Continue » Feb 25, 2011 at 1:22 PM
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Birds of a feather make great zin together
The 2008 Barsetti Vineyards Lodi Zinfandel, which recently garnered a Silver Medal at the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, is not a wine that bowls you over with its alcoholic or oak driven strength. Quite the opposite: it is a Zinfandel that gently tugs at the heart and palate with vibrant, spiced berry and sweet tea-like flavors, unfurled from a meaty, zesty edged, medium sized body, finishing dry and smooth. In fact, much like the 2006 Barsetti Vineyards Lodi Zinfandel, still in retail stores like the Lodi Wine & Visitor Center: the 2006 began as a tightly harmonious wine..
Continue » Feb 22, 2011 at 1:21 PM
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Our top 5 chocolate weekend matches
Wine & Chocolate Weekend’s wildest, funnest matches… One thing many of the Lodi wine lovers who partook in this last weekend’s knockdown, throwdown 2011 Wine & Chocolate Weekend probably discovered: perfectly delicious wines and chocolate matches come in all shapes and sizes. So let us now fondly reminisce over the funner — and in every case, mind blowing — combinations we were fortunate to experience in Lodi wine country during the past weekend: Lodi sausages in chocolate barbecue sauce with 2008 Harney Lane Lodi Zinfandel ($22) – Oh me, oh my, was this a good one: the black cherry/raspberry bright,..
Continue » Feb 17, 2011 at 1:20 PM
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