January 22, 2007

By Dan Clarke

No wine region in California has made more progress in the last decade than Lodi. Grapegrowers in the region have made a commitment to improved quality and the results are spectacular.

What changed? The area had the foresight to rethink its place in the industry.

Ann-Marie Koth and her brother Brett showed off German varieties at the Wine & Visitor Center.

Grape growers found better ways to farm. Higher quality grape varieties were planted and better viticultural practices were employed. Lodi formed a winegrape commission and behaved proactively for the good of all. They educated themselves and later educated consumers about the quality of their products through collective promotion. Lodi is now recognized as a respected part of California’s “Wine Country,” and is becoming a tourist destination, a development unthinkable just a few years ago.

Each time I visit Lodi it seems there is a new winery. Currently, there are over 25 open to the public on a regular basis. Many more either will be soon or are accessible on occasion. On their recent Wine & Chocolate weekend we visited a couple of old favorites and discovered some new ones, too.

We began our Sunday exploration at the Lodi Wine & Visitor Center on West Turner Road. The facility is open daily for tasting and sales of a wide variety of wines from the area. On this Wine and Chocolate weekend it was also temporary home to several wineries who lacked their own tasting facilities and chose to pour their products in this central location.

Among these was Mokelumne Glen Winery, owned by the Koth family. They specialize in wine varieties native to Germany. Riesling, perhaps, or Gewürztraminer might come to mind. Yes, those are fine white wines, but this day we enjoyed tastes of Germanic reds, both of which we liked and thought would be food-friendly. Lemberger is a variety also known as Blau Frankisch in Germany and Austria, but is fairly obscure in the United States. To say its like a lighter Zinfandel is an imprecise description, but it’s the best I can do. Mokelumne Glen’s treatment of this grape compared favorably to examples I’ve had from eastern Washington. Truly rare is another red wine grape, Dornfelder. Unless it was a component in some glass of house wine I’ve had in Germany, the sample poured in Lodi was the first time I experienced the grape.

Nancy Carpenter poured big Zins at Jessie's Grove.

We pushed on, heading west to Jessie’s Grove. The place has a wonderful, out-of-another-era feel to it, with walls full of pictures of the place in the 19th Century when Jessie really lived on this farm. Adding to the atmosphere was a blacksmith out front, working metal and telling stories to the visitors. The tasting room was busy; the staff and tasters all in good humor. The Zins from Jessie’s Grove are powerful and distinctive. We tried the limited production Westwind, but found the more available “Earth, Zin and Fire” particularly attractive at half the price of the former.

As much as we were enjoying the wines, we were also on the quest for pie. In what is becoming part of any trip we make to Lodi, we visited Phillips Farms. The Phillips family has been working the land here since the ‘60s (1860s, that is) and they sell produce west of town on Highway 12. Their farmstand is also home to a café where you can get breakfast or lunch (preferably, near the fireplace this time of year). Brothers Michael and David Phillips used to make wine under the Phillips Farms label, but after legal issues with a similarly-named producer, their winery became Michael-David and they never looked back. They still make wines under their first names, but they’ve slipped into a groove of proprietary wines with names such as 7 Deadly Zins, Incognito, Earthquake Zin (and Earthquake Syrah, etc.). Michael and David are clever marketers, but they’ve figured out a style that pleases a large segment of American consumers. The wines are distributed nationally and are hugely popular.

Of course, we enjoyed some tasting (of both wines and chocolate treats), but we made sure that we bought two pies to take home—a rhubarb and an apple--before they sold out.

With plans to drive over to El Dorado County for dinner at Zachary Jacques, we began heading east with the thought that we might catch one more winery on the way.

Blue-shirted m2Vintners Layne (left) and Chris are off to a strong start.

It was our good fortune to see the sign in front of m2 Vintners on East Turner Rd. As we pulled into what seemed like a typical industrial park, I saw a man who looked familiar. “Hey, wait a minute,” I thought. “I know this guy.” It was Layne Montgomery and we’d met when judging at a wine competition in Colorado. Layne and his business partner, Chris Matheny, were the two M’s who gave the brand-new winery its name. They were home winemakers who got the bug big time. We tasted in their winery that was situated in functional, but less than glamorous, surroundings. There were no swans in a pond, no antiques, not even T-shirts for sale. But, boy, can these guys make wine. We enjoyed tastes of finished wines--their Dos Arkies, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Petite Sirah, and a Syrah sourced from Calaveras County. We also had a barrel sample of Duo Blend (two different Syrahs and a Petite Sirah). The offerings were excellent and showed what skill and passion can bring to the winemaking process. They were serving tastes of grilled flank steak that, in keeping with the theme of the day, had been given a flavorsome rub that included some powdered chocolate. That was great, too. These m2 Vintners are worth watching in vintages to come.

Afternoon was waning and it was time to go. Too soon, perhaps, but there was way more happening in this Lodi appellation that we could experience in a day.

Editor’s note: Links to the websites of nearly all the wineries in the Lodi and Delta regions are found in the Resource Directory of Taste California Travel. Also there are links to Lodging and Dining opportunities in the area.