Phillips Farms finishing up on “phenomenal” 2012 harvest

Kevin Phillips with his Jahant Vineyard Petite Sirah

If you’ve seen Kevin Phillips – Michael David Winery’s VP of Operations, and sixth generation Lodi farmer – walking around lately, you probably noticed a big smile on his face.  Like he’s just inhaled one of Phillips Farms’ surrealistic-pillowy grape pies, or taken in a fresh load of aromatic compost (hey, so Lodi farmers have slightly different predilections).

But what’s actually gotten Mr. Phillips turned on is Lodi’s 2012 wine grape harvest, which he’s calling “phenomenal.”  Mind you, farmers are by nature glass-half-empty types – dealing with the harsh realities regularly dished out by Mother Nature comes with the territory – and so words like phenomenal are indeed seldom heard...

Oct 16, 2012 at 3:01 PM Permalink

New stars, music & winemaking 101 courses at Lodi’s Estate Crush

What Lodi AVA winery produces and sells no less than 65 different wines each year – the vast majority of these wines farmed by longtime Lodi growers?  The answer, of course, would be Estate Crush, located at the corner of Downtown Lodi’s W. Lockeford and N. Sacramento streets.

Estate Crush is actually a state-of-the-art custom crush facility specializing in small lot production for both boutique sized wineries (based in and outside of Lodi) and a number of Lodi growers turning tiny percentages of their grapes into wines sold under commercial brands of their own...

Oct 11, 2012 at 3:09 PM Permalink

Perfect day for wine & gazing at LoCA Uncorked

Macchia's Lani Holdener and Tanya McMahon at LoCA Uncorked

Businessmen they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth…
- Bob Dylan

Oct 8, 2012 at 3:15 PM Permalink

McCay makes early call: 2012 Zinfandels could be Lodi’s best ever!

McCay's 2012 Truluck's Zinfandel harves

It’s always good news when a Lodi AVA winemaker makes good:  on a wine list in an hoity-toity restaurant like The Kitchen in Sacramento, or in the effusive columns of discriminating critics like San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Bonné, who recently wrote...

Oct 5, 2012 at 3:45 PM Permalink

Sunset’s Zone 14: all the reason to attend LoCA Uncorked (October 6 on Treasure Island)

Walkin', talkin' Lodi: third generation grower/vintners Steve and Beverly Borra (left) with St. Amant's Barbara Spencer and The Lucas Winery's David Lucas

I feel a change coming on…
- Dickey Betts (Allman Brothers’ Pony Boy)

If you have not yet properly introduced yourself to the world of Lodi wines, you might seriously consider attending LoCA Uncorked – The Best of Lodi California Wines, taking place this Saturday, October 6, 1-5 PM (starting at 12 PM for trade and media) on beautiful Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay...

Oct 2, 2012 at 3:52 PM Permalink

Lodi’s 2012 harvest thus far: ideal pace & patience

Chad Joseph points out lighter colored water ripened bunch (not be as flavorful as darker bunches) in incoming bin of Mohr-Fry Ranches Zinfandel (for Valhalla Cellars)

Although the Lodi vintners began picking white wine grapes like Sauvignon Blanc and Verdelho in August, and Zinfandel as early as the first week of September, so far the 2012 harvest has been a little more mañana and a little less of the usual frenzied poco loco.  There was a slight spike in activity in Lodi vineyards and wineries this past week (September 23-28), but so far vintage 2012 in Lodi Wine Country has been a surprisingly calm, methodical affair...

Sep 28, 2012 at 4:00 PM Permalink

This October 6: LoCA Uncorked (Lodi winefest) roars in with Blue Angels o’er Treasure Island

There once was an artist formerly known as Prince who is now known as… Prince.

Well, there once was a yearly event in October known as the Treasure Island WineFest that is now known as LoCA Uncorked – The Best of Lodi California Wines… and why not?  Like a Prince by any other name, these annual affairs are one and the same and not 2b 4gotten:  taking place on beautiful Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, and featuring the wines of California’s Lodi AVA – a Delta climate wine region growing in international prestige seemingly by the day...

Sep 24, 2012 at 5:33 PM Permalink

Mystery wine for the ages: the 2010 Borra Heritage red

80 year old Church Block Carginane (Sept. 2012)

Part of being a winemaker in Lodi, evidently, is being a prognosticator; albeit, no spooky powers necessary – just good sense.

During the first week of October 2010, on the day that Steve Borra, and his Borra Vineyards field manager Manuel Maldonado picked the grapes going into their yearly “field blend,” Borra winemaker Markus Niggli took one look at the fruit coming in – plump and bursting with vivid, zesty flavors – and pronounced the quality “fantastic,” and confidently predicted, “2010 will be a great vintage” (re our original October 14, 2010 blogpost, Rhapsody in red)...

Sep 18, 2012 at 5:42 PM Permalink

Interview with George Mettler: the patriarch of Harney Lane

Harney Lane Wiinery's George Mettler

The latest wine by Harney Lane Winery – a red wine bottled as the Harney Lane Lodi Patriarch’s Promise ($40) – is as special as any that this acclaimed winery has ever made:  thick and chewy with dense, yet perfectly smooth, flavors of dried trail-mix berries, spiced with cinnamon, cracked pepper and, strangely enough, aromatic suggestions of fennel root and loamy earth, veering towards a mushroomy broth; at the same time, brightly fruited and full bodied, without tasting weighty or ponderous...

Sep 13, 2012 at 5:53 PM Permalink

Early days of harvest in Lodi

7 AM, September 10, 2012: Zinfandel picked for McCay's Truluck's bottlng (west side of Lodi's Mokelumne River AVA)

Of yearly harvests, Carl Sandburg once waxed poetic:

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

… and some of our own memories of the first few weeks of Lodi’s 2012 harvest...

Sep 10, 2012 at 6:13 PM Permalink