by Ken Zinns

Ken is a Bay Area architect with a passion for wine. After taking a few wine courses through UC Extension, he started becoming more "serious" about wine in the early '90s. Ken has been taking wine-tasting trips to the Central Coast since early '92, and has come to love the area - not only for the wines, which just get better year by year, but also for the people. Ken's interest in wine is more than passive, and he's been volunteering his help at several urban East Bay wineries since 2001 - and in fact was recently named assistant winemaker for both Eno Wines and Harrington Wine in Berkeley.

Spring is a great time to head to the wine country, and I was itching to get out and hit the road to explore a couple of nearby wine regions. I wanted to visit Livermore and Lodi, areas that don't get wide coverage in the wine press, as they don't make many wines that connoisseurs and collectors drool over. Livermore is only a half-hour from home for me, but I hadn't been tasting there in 4-5 years, and I'd never been to Lodi before, despite it being only an hour's drive further. Both regions are among the oldest wine-growing areas in the state, with Livermore in particular being home to several historic wineries.

I planned a four-day wine tour, about two days each in Livermore and Lodi, and I was joined for various parts of the trip by Eric Anderson, Al Osterheld, Eric Lundblad, Bob Summers, April Williams, Paul Homchick, and Tom Leaf. I don't always make appointments for wine touring, but with the number of people in our group it made sense to arrange visits with key people at each winery, and all of them were very friendly and accommodating.

Livermore Grapegrowing in Livermore Valley dates back to 1846, when Robert Livermore planted the first known vineyard in the area. But there wasn’t much of a wine business in the valley until the early 1880s, when a vineyard planting boom took place, led by Carl H. Wente and James Concannon, still familiar names in the Livermore wine industry. Other early vineyards included those of Louis Mel (El Mocho Vineyard), John Crellin (Ruby Hill Winery) and Charles Wetmore. Wetmore’s Cresta Blanca Winery, one of several able to obtain cuttings from Chateau d'Yquem through Mel, shocked the wine world by being awarded the “Grand Prix” at the Paris Exposition in 1889, the first ever awarded to an American winery. Grape growers were initially attracted to Livermore Valley by the climate, where cool air funneling through natural breaks in the neighboring north-south mountain ranges moderates the hot summer daytime temperatures. The well-known windmills of Altamont Pass are a testament to the air movement from the cooler San Francisco Bay 20 miles to the west to the hot Central Valley to the east. Another attractive feature was the soil – deep alluvial soil with lots of rocks and gravel, it’s been compared to the Graves region of Bordeaux. Wines from Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon became the first big successes from Livermore Valley, though red Bordeaux varieties gained increasing importance. By the early twentieth century, the Livermore Valley wine industry was thriving, and wines from the area were highly-regarded. But as with most wine regions in California, its wineries suffered badly during Prohibition. Out of more than 50 wineries operating in the area prior to Prohibition, only a handful – Wente and Concannon among them – survived. In a sense, Livermore Valley has never regained the lofty position it once held among California wine regions. Today, the Livermore Valley AVA is a contrast between small mom-&-pop style wineries and the huge Wente and Concannon operations. There are now over 40 wineries in Livermore Valley, the number nearly doubling in just the past six years. While there are a few well-financed larger new ventures, many are tiny boutique wineries launched by people realizing their dream of making their own wine – and Livermore is a far more affordable place to do so these days than Napa or Sonoma. With so many new wineries, it’s no surprise that a good deal of fruit must be sourced from outside the area, though with more recent plantings now producing fruit, more Livermore Valley fruit is becoming available. Another serious issue facing the Livermore wine industry has been the tremendous pressure on vineyard land from developers. At one point, only about one-quarter of historic vineyard land in the valley remained planted, leading wineries and other local groups to gain the approval and implementation of the South Livermore Valley Specific Plan in the mid-‘90s. Among other things, this requires one acre of land to be placed under an agricultural easement for every individual building lot and every acre developed with housing. The Plan has been credited with revitalizing the Livermore wine business, as many acres of new vineyards (and new olive orchards as well) have been planted in recent years. A number of Livermore vintners feel that their wine region has the potential to be on a par with Napa Valley, but lacks the marketing cachet to compete. In recent years, there has been some effort to make Livermore more of a "destination" area for visitors, particularly with Wente’s golf course and summer concert series. But despite improving wines and its rich wine history, Livermore is still lacking in other visitor appeal – for example, other than Wente's own restaurant, there are few top-notch dining options in the area. Another issue is that Livermore still lacks an identity as a quality wine region. As noted above, a number of local wineries purchase much of their fruit from outside the area. And some wineries from other areas that use Livermore fruit choose to use the "San Francisco Bay" AVA rather than "Livermore" on their labels. The image of Livermore not producing high-quality wines, whether valid or not, contributes to keeping grape prices and wine prices down. And this in turn affects local vintners’ ability to spend more money on capital improvements that could boost the quality of their grapes and wine. It’s a difficult cycle to break.

Big White House / John Evan
I had hoped to arrange a visit to Thomas Coyne Winery as part of our four-day tour, but because they were bottling wine the weekend of our Livermore visit, I scheduled an appointment there the Sunday before that. Having a bit of spare time in the area before the appointment, I stopped to taste at Big White House. Owner/winemaker John Marion started the label in the late '90s after a decade of home winemaking in…….you guessed it, his "big white house." The move to commercial winemaking happened after the number of barrels at home outgrew the garage and they started appearing in the living room, prompting John's wife Diana to say "enough"! After further growth and a couple of moves, the winery has settled into its current space on Greenville Road near the eastern edge of Livermore wine country.

Housed in a small wood building overlooking rolling hills filled with vineyards, the tasting room features displays by local artists, with new artists featured every month or so. The winery is a family affair, with Diana helping behind the tasting bar and son John Evan Marion, who assists with Big White House winemaking, pulling barrel samples of his own John Evan wines. Fruit is sourced from a number of locations, not just Livermore Valley, and most wines are produced in small lots.

Winemaking is fairly straightforward and not unusual for a small winery. Whites are whole-cluster pressed and then barrel-fermented. John has a temperature-controlled room for these, to keep fermentation temperatures down, retaining fruit esters that tend to blow off if the fermentation is too hot. Whites are aged on the lees. Reds are fermented in small bins with hand punchdowns two or three times daily, and sometimes go through an extended maceration if John is looking for a little more extraction. Barrels are a combination of new French oak and older French and American oak, from a variety of coopers. The John Evan wines are even tinier production, sourcing fruit from different areas than Big White House, and the wines seem aimed toward a more select group of consumers.

I tasted the Big House White wines with John Marion at the tasting bar, then walked across the room to taste barrel samples with John Evan Marion of his own wines. Both Johns are talkative and enthusiastic about what they’re doing – like so many vintners, they’re living their dream. As with several other Livermore wineries we visited, the Big White House wines were mostly quite nice – pleasant wines but ultimately no real standouts. The three barrel samples from John Evan were very promising though, and once this new label gets off the ground, it could be one to watch.

Thomas Coyne Winery

Next stop was Thomas Coyne, one of my favorite Livermore Valley wineries over the years. I met Bob Summers and Al Osterheld at the winery tasting room, housed in an old building that had once been part of the Bellevue Winery, founded by French engineer Alexander Duvall in 1881. Together with a couple of other buildings from that historic winery, the facility is located on a hillside overlooking several old farm buildings and the valley beyond, with imposing Mt. Diablo in the distance.

We met Thomas next to his barrel storage building, a short distance from the tasting room, where he was finishing up a discussion with one of his growers. We introduced ourselves and he invited us inside, out of the chilly afternoon wind. Thomas has an engaging and straightforward manner, and despite having probably gone through his story with visitors hundreds of times over the years, he was happy to do so for us, while answering our many questions along the way.

Thomas has a chemical engineering degree from Penn State University, and started making wine at home in western New York in 1969. He told us that his very first wine was made from cherries! Later, he started buying lug boxes of "O Sole Mio" brand grapes from Lodi that were sent east for home winemakers. Thomas' work led him and his wife Emilie to Livermore in 1978. A key event happened not long afterwards, when Thomas met winemaker Kent Rosenblum through the Berkeley Ski Club. Thomas began working at Rosenblum Cellars in 1987. Rosenblum encouraged Thomas' own ambitions and in 1989 he launched his own label, at first making his wine at Rosenblum's facility in Alameda. He moved out in 1994 after finding the old winery buildings in Livermore, where he continues to rent space from the Detjen family, who have owned the property for many years.

Since moving the winery to Livermore over a decade ago, the production has increased modestly, from about 2,000 cases then to about 3,500-4,000 now. The "Quest" Rhône-style blend is the largest single bottling, and prices are remarkably low for wines of the quality the winery produces, with nothing in the current wine list over $20. Thomas started his label making mostly Merlot, and has become known for that variety as well as for his many Rhône-style wines and dessert wines. His fruit is now sourced mostly from Livermore, Lodi, and El Dorado County, with some coming from the Detjen Farms in Livermore near the winery property. The Detjens used to have 70 acres of Grey Riesling (which is not actually a Riesling at all, but another grape called Chauché Gris) on their property. They sold the fruit to Wente, but when that variety went out of fashion, the vines were grafted to Pinot Blanc, Syrah, and Petite Sirah in the '90s.

Whites wines are all barrel-fermented, and the winery has a cold room for temperature control during fermentation. Reds are fermented in t-bins & half-ton macrobins, plus some small stainless steel tanks. All lots are inoculated with commercial yeast strains. Thomas uses mostly American oak for his wines, along with some French and Hungarian. On average there is about 20% new oak, with older barrels used for Grenache, Mourvèdre, and the regular Syrah bottling, and more new oak for reserve Syrah and Bordeaux varieties. Only older oak is used for white wines.

Thomas led us to the rustic tasting room, where he left us before attending to another meeting that afternoon. The tasting room is decorated with lots of Penn State memorabilia among other things. Of special note is the display case near the door, containing many old bottles from historic Livermore Valley wineries such as Cresta Blanca, Wente, Valle de Oro, and Ruby Hill.

Claudia was pouring wines in the tasting room the day we visited, along with Emilie Coyne herself, both of them very cheerful as they tasted us on many of the winery’s current releases. With over 20 wines on their current tasting list, the tasting room switches off pouring Rhône- and Bordeaux-style wines each weekend. Whichever wines the main tasting room is not serving on a given weekend are poured at a satellite tasting room at Blacksmith Square in downtown Livermore. Bordeaux varieties (and a few other wines) were the order of the day when we visited. Among the wines that we didn't taste are Pinot Gris, Viognier, a couple of red Rhône-style blends ("La Petite Quest" and "Quest"), Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Malbec, and a blend of Portuguese varieties.

Our tasting confirmed my view that Thomas Coyne continues to be one of the most consistently fine wine producers in Livermore Valley, and certainly among the best in terms of quality for the price.
 

The Steven Kent Winery

The Steven Kent Winery itself is not much more than 10 years old, but the family history is among the oldest in California wine. The owner, Steven Kent Mirassou, is a 6th-generation winemaker. Pierre Pellier first planted grapevines in Santa Clara Valley in the 1850s, and his son-in-law Pierre Mirassou lent his name to the business that would become Mirassou Vineyards. Although the Mirassou brand is now owned by Gallo, Steven and his father – also named Steven – founded the Steven Kent Winery in 1996. Originally connected with Iván Tamás Winery (which the elder Steven founded along with Iván Tamás Fuezy in 1984), Steven Kent Winery became a separate entity in 2001.

Eric Lundblad and I arrived a few minutes early at the Steven Kent tasting room on Tesla Road for our Friday morning appointment. Al Osterheld drove up shortly afterwards, with Eric Anderson joining us moments later after his long drive from Southern California. The spring of '08 had been unusually cool, but the weather forecast called for the hottest temperatures of the year over the weekend. Waiting outside at first, the cool tasting room soon became a good alternative to the increasing heat. After a few minutes, Steven Mirassou walked in and we all introduced ourselves, after which he proceeded to tell us about his winery while pouring us his current releases at the tasting bar.

The winery's principal mission is to produce world-class Cabernet Sauvignon from Livermore Valley fruit, something that Steven feels is quite possible but which has rarely been the goal of other winemakers in the area. He told us that the degree-day numbers for Livermore Valley are very similar to that of Oakville and St. Helena in Napa Valley. Steven also noted that the alluvial fans from the surrounding hills are responsible for depositing the rocks and gravel on the valley floor that give the soil its Bordeaux-like character. He pointed out that Bordeaux-variety wines from Livermore tend to be more fruit-forward than their Napa equivalents, with a more dense, fleshy mid-palate and softer tannins.

(l to r) Eric Lundblad, Al Osterheld, Steven Kent Mirassou, Ken Zinns

Steven mentioned that before starting the winery with Ivan Tamás in 1984, his father was heading up wholesale sales at Wente – an irony in that most Steven Kent wines are sold direct and through the wine clubs rather than through wholesale channels.

Planting started in 1996 for the new winery, beginning with 6 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, along with some Sangiovese and Barbera. The estate Home Ranch itself is about 3 acres, and was planted with Clone 7 Cabernet Sauvignon. Newer plantings are nearby – 22 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon (5 different clones), Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Petite Sirah, Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvèdre. The winery's first release was in 2002.

All Steven Kent wines are sourced from Livermore Valley, and are produced at the nearby Wente facility. The current annual production is about 7,000 cases, about 5,000 cases of which is sold through wine clubs and direct. Steven usually aims at a riper style for his wines, picking his fruit at 25+ brix. Winemaking uses small-scale techniques, fermenting in ¾-ton to 1½-ton bins, with manual punch-downs. The cooperage is mostly American oak, with some French and Hungarian. We found that the American oak is not nearly as aggressive or apparent as that used at some other wineries – we might not have even guessed it was used had Steven not told us. About 60-65% new oak is used for Chardonnay, with up to 90% new for Cabernet. The winery's Sauvignon Blanc has been made entirely in stainless steel (with no malolactic fermentation), but a barrel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc will also be released in the future. Chardonnay is all barrel-fermented with 100% malolactic fermentation (the winery's "Merrillie" Chardonnay is named after Steven's grandmother). Beginning with the '06 vintage, whites are being bottled under screwcap, with some reds following suit as well.

Steven was a great host, and his energy and drive to boost the quality of Livermore Cabernet, and Livermore wines in general, was very evident. While the Steven Kent Cabernets may not yet be in the same class as the finest in California, they are setting the standard for what can be done with Livermore Valley fruit. They can be expected to continue raising the bar higher in future vintages and in time they may indeed join the upper echelon of California Cabs.

La Rochelle Winery

Following our tasting at Steven Kent Winery, we followed Steven to taste the wines from his other label, La Rochelle, in their tasting room just a few steps away. It's fitting that La Rochelle specializes in Pinot Noir, as it was Steven's ancestor Pierre Pellier who is usually credited with bringing the first Pinot Noir vines to California in the 1850s. The La Rochelle label was started by the Mirassou family in 2003 and purchased by Steven in 2005. Named for the French town from where the family came, La Rochelle focuses mainly on Pinot from Monterey County fruit. In addition to Pinot Noir, they also produce limited bottlings of other varieties including Pinot Gris, sparkling wine, Petite Sirah, and Zinfandel. The winemaker for La Rochelle is Tom Stutz, who had formerly worked at Hanzell and Mirassou.

As with its sister winery, winemaking is small-scale, with fermentations done in 1½-ton bins. Fruit is 100% destemmed, and usually undergoes an extended maceration. The wine spends about 12-18 months in barrel (all French), with an average of about 50% new oak though some wines are up to 100%. An unusual facet of the winemaking is that there is no free sulfur dioxide – commonly added to protect wines from oxidation and spoilage – introduced in the wines until bottling.

We sat with Steven at a table in the cozy La Rochelle tasting room. Tastings here are sit-down affairs, and the wines are paired with an assortment of cheeses, crackers, tapenade, and other goodies. We tasted seven current Pinot Noirs, five of which were sourced from the Santa Lucia Highlands and Arroyo Seco in Monterey County, and two of which was from Umpqua Valley in Oregon. This wine is La Rochelle's first Oregon Pinot and was made at Brandborg winery near the vineyard source (we wondered whether the wines were made there by Umpqua-Lumpquas……ooof, bad pun). Winemaker Tom Stutz owns property in the area, near the town of Elkton.

We finished the tasting with two very limited-release clonal bottlings, allowing us to compare the Wadenswil (2A) clone from Mission Ranch in Arroyo Seco and from Anindor Vineyard in Umpqua Valley. We noticed that each vineyard-designated wine cleverly lists the longitude and latitude of the vineyard right on the front label – easy to find the vineyards with a GPS device!

Although La Rochelle produces wines from outside Livermore Valley, they were a treat to taste – particularly the very distinctive and tasty Umpqua Valley bottlings. You wouldn't expect to see a Pinot Noir specialist based in Livermore, but this is one to keep an eye on.

Murrieta's Well

Next stop on our itinerary was Murrieta's Well, on Mines Road just around the corner from Steven Kent / La Rochelle, and yet another Livermore winery with a long history. The winery was originally built in 1884 by Louis Mel, who had brought cuttings of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon from Chateau d’Yquem to Livermore. The sturdy building, dug partly into the hillside, is one of the oldest concrete structures in the area and an early example of a gravity-flow winery in California. Purchased by the Wente family upon Mel's retirement in the 1930s, the facility was little-used until Philip Wente and Sergio Traverso – who had been the winemaker at nearby Concannon Vineyards – founded the Murrieta's Well label there in 1990.

We were a bit late in arriving for our appointment, but tasting room manager Greg Rogers was ready for our group and led us to the tasting bar. Greg talked with us about Murrieta’s Well as he poured the winery's current releases for us.

Named for the property's artesian well, which was reputed to have been favored by famed California bandit / folk hero Joaquin Murrieta in the 1850s, the winery provided a brand where Philip Wente and Traverso could focus on smaller lots of wines than were produced at their larger wineries. Later on, it also allowed Traverso, a native of Chile, a chance to explore making wines from Spanish and Portuguese grapes, with a number of varieties being planted over the last ten years. Philip Wente continues to head up the winemaking team, while Traverso is now a consultant. And the well? It's still there too, and now feeds an attractive fountain next to the winery.

The old winery, which now houses the tasting room on its upper floor, is on a 92-acre estate, planted with two white and nine red grape varieties: Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Zinfandel, Mouvèdre, Tempranillo, Touriga Francesca, Touriga Nacional, and Souzão. All of the wines made by Murrieta's Well are made from estate fruit, and they are produced at the nearby Wente facility. Production has grown to average 6,000-10,000 cases per year.

The winery produces two brands. The Murrieta's Well label focuses on four wines – a white and red Meritage, a Zinfandel, and "Zarzuela" (Spanish for "Operetta"), a blend of Spanish and Portuguese varieties. A second label called Los Tesoros de Joaquin (The Treasures of Joaquin) produces a number of small lots of wine that are available mainly through the tasting room and wine club. The White Meritage is barrel-fermented, while all of the Los Tesoros whites are made in stainless steel. Components of the Red Meritage and "Zarzuela" are barrel-aged separately, blended, and then returned to barrel for additional aging. Most of the Los Tesoros reds are fermented in ½-ton bins.

Overall this was a solid line-up of wines. And while individually I didn’t find any of the wines we tasted to be truly exceptional, as a group they were distinctive – full-flavored, yet with a more restrained style than many other Livermore Valley wines.

I had eaten before at Café Garré, not far from where we were on the eastern side of Livermore wine country, so I suggested that would be a nice spot for lunch. It's a very convenient location and the food was good – a pleasant stop if you're looking to have a non-picnic lunch when touring Livermore Valley wineries.

Livermore Valley Cellars
After an enjoyable lunch, we drove a few miles west to our next stop at Livermore Valley Cellars, or "LVC" as it’s called by everyone in the area. It had been a few years since I'd visited here and we nearly got lost trying to find the winery, as it is now surrounded by a development of new homes. We nearly overshot the access drive from the main road, then had to zig-zag through the new residential streets to reach the winery buildings. Parking next to one of the buildings, we walked up to another one where we could see some activity going on, and there we met winemaker Tim Sauer.

Tim is the son-in-law of winery founders/owners Chris & Beverly Lagiss. Chris & Beverly purchased the property in 1955, and sold fruit to local wineries for many years until they started the winery in 1978. The land had originally been planted in 1930s with Grey Riesling and French Colombard, now long-gone. Much of the property has been sold in recent years for the construction of homes, which now surround the winery. The remaining land includes 7½ acres of recently-planted estate vineyards – varieties include Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, Sauvignon Blanc, and Semillon. Plans are in the works for a new facility to replace the collection of utilitarian buildings that now house the winery and tasting room.

Tim has worked at LVC since 1983, taking over as full-time winemaker in 1990. About 2,000 cases per year are produced, 75-80% of that being red wines. Zinfandel is currently largest production at about 300 cases. Similar to many Livermore Valley wineries we visited, most sales are through the tasting room and wine club. All fruit is sourced from Livermore Valley, and LVC currently buys from about 9 growers in the area. As expected with a winery of this size, wines are fermented in small lots. I got the sense that Tim would really love seeing the new winery built (though he mentioned this was somewhat up in the air at the moment), as we could see the crowded arrangement and other limits of the current facility restrict what he’s able to do there.

Zinfandel seems the signature wine here, especially LVC's "Derriere" series of Zins. Besides the two we tasted, others in the series have included “Sweet Cheeks,” “Left Behind” and “Right Behind” – surely some big-ass wines! For a winery producing only 2,000 cases, LVC makes a fairly wide variety of wines. In addition to the wines we tasted, they also make a Chardonnay, varietal bottlings of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, Syrah Rosé, Grenache, a couple of Cabernets, and Petite Sirah. All wines on the current list were $25 and under. Tim noted that they had a difficult time deciding how to price their '06 Grenache – he decided it should be $20.06…..since after all it's a 2006.

Like many small wineries, LVC depends on volunteer help – a couple of volunteers were on hand the day we visited. John, one of the long-time helpers there, tasted us on some barrel samples and current releases while Tim was briefly occupied with other activities. Tim returned to the tasting room to help pour the last few wines on their current release list. He and John were clearly enjoying themselves – and no doubt this was a nice break for them from the tougher work they’d been doing that hot afternoon.

LVC's motto is "Wine with Character……Made by Characters." The overall lineup may lack some consistency, but a number of the wines had distinctive character. With newer estate plantings maturing and hopefully an upgraded facility in the future, the winery should be able to rely on its strong local following to support it in helping move the wines to the next level.

Fenestra Winery
Our last winery visit of the day was at Fenestra. Parking in front of the old winery building, we were distracted by a group of wild turkeys nearby…..at least Eric Anderson was distracted, I've seen enough wild turkeys before! The turkeys took little notice of us, but winery owners Lanny and Fran Replogle had noticed our arrival and walked up the sloping drive next to the winery to greet us. Fran had to go, leaving us in the capable hands of Lanny and his new winemaker, Brent Amos.

Lanny led us down to the base of the drive and around a corner to a large paved area with old concrete retaining walls on two sides. He told us that this had been part of the George True winery, founded in 1889 – yet another historic winery, they seem to be everywhere in Livermore! There had once been a two-story building where we stood, constructed about 1910 by True. Other than the concrete retaining walls, the building is now gone, and Lanny uses this area as the winery's crushpad. There's a small tunnel leading through one of the walls to another one of the early structures, a brick building from the 1890s. This brick building has since been expanded and turned into the winery's main facility. Lots of work was done to renovate the building, which was slowly falling apart before Lanny and Fran moved their winery there in 1980. A new roof replaced the old decaying one and tons of debris were hauled out from inside the building. Lanny and Fran are in the process of installing solar panels on the winery roof.

Lanny is an exceptionally gregarious fellow, and he seemed to really enjoy talking with us about his winery. He taught organic chemistry at San Jose State University, and started out by making wine at home. The winery was founded in 1976, under the original name of Ventana, but had to change the name due to Ventana Vineyard in Monterey County. Lanny and Fran cleverly chose Fenestra – "window" in Latin rather than in Spanish. Before the winery moved to its current location in 1980, the wines were made at Stony Ridge Winery, then housed in the historic old Ruby Hill Winery facility. Lanny retired from his teaching job in 1992 to work at winery full-time. He stepped down as winemaker in 2007 and his assistant winemaker, Brent Amos, took over that position. Brent had worked for at Ferrari-Carano and Fritz wineries before coming to Fenestra 2½ years ago.

Adjacent to the winery, there's a vineyard on the property, planted in 1996-7. It's planted with Syrah and Mourvèdre, with some of the Syrah grafted over to Grenache last winter. A big recent event for the winery was that the Replogles were able to purchase the property in 2007 (they had been leasing it prior to that), a total of just under 17 acres including the vineyards.

We followed Lanny and Brent into the old winery building, which like several others we visited, was partially dug into the hillside. Just outside was a very old crusher, no longer in use but fascinating to see. Inside the building, I was surprised to see some very nice bottling line equipment, a rare sight at smaller wineries. Lanny explained that they bought it in 2006, as they found it more convenient to have their own bottling line to handle their many small-production bottlings. Total production is about 7,500 cases per year, with over 20 different bottlings. Fenestra's "True Red" (named after George True) is their most popular and largest production wine at about 1,700 cases.

We lined up for tasting at an informal counter in the heart of the old brick building, surrounded by barrels and cases of wine. Lanny told us about his winemaking, which is similar to many other smaller Livermore Valley wineries – fermentation for reds in half-ton bins, and aged in mostly American oak along with some French and Hungarian. And also like many local wineries, 75-80% of Fenestra's wine is sold through the tasting room and wine club.

It’s a rare vintner who doesn’t love pouring their wines for visitors, and Lanny was no exception. We tasted many of the wines in Fenestra's line-up, including some relatively unusual varieties such as Verdehlo, Alvarelhão, and Touriga. Another unusual variety – from this area, at least – was a Pinot Noir from Livermore Valley, sourced from Tenuta Vineyard. The "True Red" (a non-vintage blend of Rhône, Bordeaux, and Iberian varieties) was one of the tastiest "spaghetti red"-style wines I've tried in quite awhile, combining bright flavors and some unexpected complexity with a more-than-reasonable price.

Among other wines besides those we tasted are Sauvignon Blanc, dry Rosé, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, and Petite Sirah. Lanny sources much of his fruit from outside Livermore Valley – for example, his Spanish and Portuguese varieties come from Silvaspoons Vineyard in Lodi, a source we were to hear about a number of other times. He wishes he could source more of what he wants locally but often finds that he can't…..he likes to make Semillon but notes that local plantings are disappearing. We asked which grape variety he thought does best in Livermore Valley, and Lanny feels that Syrah may hold the most potential for future success.

Lanny and Fenestra Winery both struck me as being very down-home, welcoming and unpretentious. Combined with the wide variety of tasty wines at attractive prices, it's not hard to understand why it's been one of the most popular wineries among Livermore locals over the years.

Saying goodbye to Lanny and Brent, we found that our timing was perfect, allowing us just enough time to drive the short distance to downtown Pleasanton for our dinner there at Agora Bistro, recommended by our friend Andrew Gelb. We met Andrew and his lovely wife Xiaopei there and enjoyed some delicious Greek food along with plenty of good wines.

Eckert Estate Winery

We reconvened the next morning at Eckert Estate, on Arroyo Road in the southern part of Livermore wine country, where we were joined by Paul Homchick. The winery was having an event that afternoon, where visitors would be able to bottle their own wine from a barrel of Eckert Livermore Valley Cabernet. They would repeat the event the following weekend with a barrel of Merlot. Mike Eckert was busy setting up a bottle-filler and corker under a small tent outside the tasting room when we arrived, but we talked with him as he worked.

Mike & Vickie Eckert started their winery in 2000. They met while working in the high-tech industry, and decided to start their own business rather than be subject to the constant ups and downs of high-tech. Mike had been a home winemaker for a number of years, so launching a winery seemed like the direction to take. After talking with several local vintners, they decided to plant grapevines at their property on Arroyo Road. Although Mike credits Thomas Coyne in particular as being his winemaking mentor, he worked with Lanny Replogle at Fenestra as well, and made the first Eckert Estate wines at Fenestra. Mike & Vickie have Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, and Mourvèdre planted on their property. Just across the drive leading to their winery, neighbor Rick Hansen has a sizable plantation of olive trees and makes well-regarded olive oil under the Arroyo Windmill Grove brand.

We headed into the modest tasting room, where Vickie had a number of the winery's current releases set up for us. The winery currently produces 2,500-3,000 cases per year, and sells about 95% of its wines through the tasting room – quite an amazing percentage. Similar to the strategy employed by other small Livermore Valley wineries we visited, Eckert produces a wide variety of wines, mostly made in small lots of about 100 cases. Mike stepped in to take a break from his hard work outside partway through our tasting, and he helped Vickie in recounting all the other wines they make in addition to those we tasted: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Mourvèdre, Charbono, Barbera, Touriga, Alvarahão, Tempranillo, another blend of Portuguese varieties, and several different Ports.

Eckert is making some interesting and unusual wines, though as might be expected with so many different bottlings (especially from a fairly new producer), the quality across the board isn't as consistent as it could be. Perhaps paring down the line-up a bit might help focus the brand, but there were some promising wines here and it should be worth keeping tabs on this new winery.

Wente Vineyards
To many, Wente is synonymous with Livermore Valley wine. Celebrating its 125th year in 2008, it is the oldest continuously-operating family-owned winery in California. The winery was founded in 1883 by Carl H. Wente, who learned winemaking from another California wine legend, Charles Krug. He bought 47 acres in Livermore Valley that year, planted a vineyard, and started his winery. Wente managed to survive Prohibition years by shipping grapes for home winemaking (which was still legal) and producing sacramental wines. The winery's notable achievements include producing California's first varietally-labeled Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, both made not long after the end of Prohibition.

Today, Wente produces about 350,000 cases of wine per year, and owns about 2,000 acres of vineyard land in Livermore Valley and elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area and another 1,000 acres in Monterey County. In addition, they manage the farming of well over 1,000 acres more in Livermore. In recent years, the winery has been especially well-known for its Chardonnay, and the famous Wente Chardonnay clones, descended from the winery's plantings nearly a century ago, continue to be some of the most-planted vines of that variety in the state.

The Wente family was instrumental in creating the South Livermore Valley Plan that has helped preserve vineyard land in the area. The winery has also been a leader in helping to promote Livermore Valley as a visitor destination, sponsoring a successful summer concert series, building a Greg Norman-designed golf course, and opening a top-notch restaurant. They've come to the assistance of other local wineries, notably fellow Livermore legend Concannon, and helped to save the historic Ruby Hill winery building after it was gutted by a fire, allowing it to be reconstructed (it's now the Mitchell Katz Winery). In addition to Wente Vineyards itself, the family also owns Murrieta's Well and Tamás Estate wineries. If not for Wente, the Livermore Valley wine industry would surely not be as healthy as it is today.

The winery is currently managed by the 4th generation of the winemaking family – Eric, Philip, and Carolyn Wente. Eric's son, UC Davis-trained Karl Wente, formally joined the winery in 2002, and heads up winery operations while his sister Christine is in charge of marketing. A few years ago, Karl started the Small Lot (300-700 case bottlings) and Nth Degree (up to 300 case bottlings) lines of Wente wines. These are not widely available, with much of the production going exclusively to wine club members and the tasting room. Using fruit from more meticulously-farmed vineyard blocks, and made in one-ton fermenters, these wines are meant to ultimately compete with the best from California, something that Wente has not attempted to do for many years.

I had spoken with Amanda Stellhorn from Wente's marketing department, who arranged for our group to have a special in-depth tasting at the winery's large Tesla Road tasting room (they also have a separate sparkling wine facility, along with their golf course and restaurant, a few miles away at the site of the historic Cresta Blanca Winery). We were greeted at the tasting room by Kristin, who proceeded to taste us on many of Wente's current releases. She generously poured us samples from Wente's regular line of wines as well as from their Small Lot and Nth Degree lines.

The Wente wines were well-made, but as could be expected from a winery with such large production, most were pleasant but not especially distinctive. The Small Lot and Nth Degree wines were clearly a step up, although at this point they seem priced somewhat high for what they are. But the Wentes over the years have been undeniably successful at reaching their intended markets, and hopefully as these new programs continue to develop we’ll see wines that better match the prices.

After our tasting at Wente, we decided to try a fairly new eatery for lunch, Firehouse Bistro & Books in downtown Livermore. As the name suggests, it's a combination café and bookstore, and it's housed in an old firehouse building. The front area was small and fairly busy when we arrived, but we were led to a spacious and airy back room with a large skylight and bookshelf-lined walls. Lunch was very good, and although it would have been tempting to relax and peruse the books, we had to hit the road for the one-hour drive over Altamont Pass and north toward the San Joaquin River delta, where we had our next winery appointment just outside the town of Lodi.

Lodi Lodi and Livermore – they're similar, yet different. In terms of climate, both might be considered too hot to grow quality wine grapes without the benefit they each receive from cooling San Francisco Bay winds in the evenings, but they have very different soils and landscapes. Both areas have long histories with the wine industry, but with Livermore it's mainly the wineries that are historic while in Lodi it's the growers, with many families growing grapes there for generations. And each area has experienced a recent boom in the number of wineries, though in large part for different reasons. The Lodi area has one of the wider diurnal temperature swings of any California winegrowing region, due to the hot summer days tempered by cool winds from the San Joaquin Delta directly to the west. Areas just a few miles to the north or south of Lodi miss this natural source of cooling. Sure enough, in the short time we were there, we experienced a 30-35 degree shift in temperatures between day and night. The landscape in the Mokelumne River part of Lodi that we visited is typical California Central Valley – flat, flat, flat. At Ripken Vineyards, there's a bench with a shady arbor perched atop a 3-4 foot high mound outside the winery – the most notable hill we saw in the area, the Ripken family refers to it as Mt. Lodi! With this wide-open landscape, many vineyards are very large, considerably bigger than in the hilly coastal or foothill regions. The soil in the area is mostly deep sandy loam, with more red volcanic gravelly soil in the Clements Hills part of Lodi a few miles east. Mokelumne River, Clements Hills….I should back up here and explain these designations. The Lodi American Viticultural Area (or AVA) was approved by the Federal Government in 1986. More recently, grower/vintner Markus Bokisch began to explore creating sub-AVAs, as a way of distinguishing fruit grown in the different areas of the broader Lodi region. Eventually the influential Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission got on board with the plan, and seven sub-AVAs were finally approved in 2006: Mokelumne River, Clements Hills, Jahant, Borden Ranch, Cosumnes River, Alta Mesa, and Sloughhouse. A key to the plan's acceptance from the Winegrape Commission and many local vintners is that wineries can use both the "Lodi" name as well as the sub-AVA on their labels – a wise move that helps to keep the growing consumer recognition of Lodi wines from becoming diluted. The Lodi area has been farmed since the mid-1800s. Early on, grain farming was notable while by the later nineteenth century, Lodi was famed for its watermelons. Both table grapes and wine grapes have been grown there since the 1850s. The Flame Tokay grape (not related to similarly-named varieties from Europe) was once synonymous with Lodi grapes. Used mostly for table grapes but also for jug and fortified wines, the variety fell out of favor and only a few old head-trained Tokay vineyards remain in the area today. Of other grape varieties, Zinfandel has enjoyed the most success in Lodi over the years, and it is old-vine Zin that has had the biggest part in putting Lodi back on the wine map. There are a tremendous number of other varieties grown in the area as well, many of which are not commonly seen in California – in particular, Spanish and Portuguese varieties seem to thrive there. Prohibition was actually a prosperous time for many Lodi growers, as they shipped grapes all over the country for home winemakers. Shipping their fruit has remained a significant business for Lodi growers over the years, and we've seen that Livermore's Thomas Coyne started out making wine from Lodi grapes in New York. And famously, during the Prohibition years many packages of fresh grapes and grape concentrate not specifically intended for home winemakers included detailed instructions on how not to let them "accidentally" ferment into wine – wouldn't want that to happen! It's fairly well-known that Robert Mondavi turned to Lodi fruit for his Woodbridge line of wines in the late ‘70s (the town of Woodbridge is just outside of Lodi), but not as well-known that he grew up there, graduating from Lodi Union High School. His father Cesare had established a business that included packing grapes for shipment to the east coast, mainly for home winemakers. Mondavi seems widely-admired by local growers for paying good prices for their fruit and for helping to generate greater recognition for Lodi. Today, Lodi grows an enormous percentage of California winegrapes – data from the 2007 crush shows that 40% of all Zinfandel in the state came from Lodi, as well as 25% of Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% of Merlot, 22% of Chardonnay, 21% of Sauvignon Blanc, and 43% of Petite Sirah. With this huge production, it's no surprise that much of the fruit goes to large outfits such as Gallo and Constellation. But plenty of Lodi fruit is blended into wines from well-known vintners from Napa, Sonoma, and all over the state, and many "California"-labeled wines include some Lodi fruit. With nearly 800 growers and close to 100,000 acres planted (compared with around 5,000 acres in Livermore), vineyard land is plentiful in the area, and there's currently not as much pressure from developers as there is in Livermore. One way that the Lodi wine region is trying to set itself apart is through the creation and adoption of the "Lodi Rules." These days, with virtually every grape grower saying they are using sustainable farming practices, it's become difficult to know what they actually mean. The Lodi Rules is California's first third-party certified sustainable growing program for winegrapes, and includes a comprehensive set of guidelines that address not just the overall health of the vineyard and its ecosystem but also promotes wider issues of biodiversity, soil, air, and water quality, and employee safety and well-being. The goal is to implement the Lodi Rules throughout the region, and it's being adopted by more and more growers every year. And by permitting wines using at least 85% of Lodi Rules fruit to display a "Lodi Rules" logo on their bottles, the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission hopes to turn good farming practices into a marketing opportunity as well. The Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission, established by area growers in 1991, has been very effective in raising consumer awareness of Lodi wines. They've been aggressive, and pretty successful, in promoting local wine tourism. The Lodi Wine Visitor Center, which opened in 2000, has become a centerpiece of their efforts. There are now over 70 Lodi wineries, up from only about 10 of them just a decade ago. Creating a critical mass of quality local wineries seems to be a key concern in the area, with hopes that greater recognition of Lodi wine will lead to higher grape prices. One of the biggest challenges facing Lodi growers has been maintaining grape prices. Following Prohibition and for some years afterwards, wine cooperatives were common in the area, but these had only a mixed record of success. In recent years it's been difficult for many growers to obtain good prices, particularly when selling to the very large wineries – with consolidation in the wine business, there are fewer of these large wineries to compete for the fruit. These buyers also have more options for finding less expensive fruit from other areas, and now have the additional option of buying cheap bulk wine from overseas. For this reason, many Lodi growers have started their own wineries, where they have the potential of earning 2-3 times more by making own wine rather than by just selling their fruit. This has caused an explosion in the number of Lodi wineries in recent years. Even so, it's a rare bottle of Lodi wine that can sell for more than $20-25, and the area may well find itself in the same cycle of low prices limiting capital improvements that could boost quality as Livermore wineries have faced.

Klinker Brick Winery
We were due to add three more people to our group in Lodi – Bob Summers, April Williams, and Tom Leaf. Despite coming from several different directions, everyone managed to arrive at our first Lodi stop, Klinker Brick Winery, within a short time of one another. Although they are planning to open a tasting room in the future, for now Klinker Brick is open by appointment only, and the only identification was a small sign with the address number across the road from an unassuming house…most of our group passed it by before turning around and finding it. Proceeding along a driveway next to the house, we came to a barn where Steve Felten, owner of Klinker Brick, welcomed us.

Steve is a 5th-generation Lodi grower, and his family has farmed various wine grapes in the area for many years. In 1996, Steve & Lori Felten started selling Zinfandel fruit to well-known wineries such as Ravenswood, Kenwood, and Rosenblum. In 2000 they began making Zinfandel for their own Klinker Brick label, adding a Syrah to the line-up the following year. Now they use all the Zinfandel they grow, and most of the Syrah. They still grow and sell Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Malbec as well. Steve farms 15 vineyards, all in Lodi's Mokelumne River sub-AVA, and he notes that yields can be as low as ¼-ton per acre from the old vine Zinfandel. Most of the Zin vineyards that Steve farms are over 90 years old, and all of these older vines are head-trained. Four of the Felten’s vineyards are dry-farmed, while the rest have drip irrigation systems.

The winery name is a reference to the "klinker brick" construction of the Felten's house along North Alpine Road, a style seen in many old buildings in the Lodi area. Current production is about 30,000 cases per year of two old vine Zinfandel bottlings and one Syrah. The wine is made by Barry Gnekow, who is a consulting winemaker for a number of highly-regarded labels. He works with wineries from Mendocino to Monterey but grew up in the Stockton-Lodi area so he has a natural connection with the area. Klinker Brick uses French oak on Syrah and American oak on Zinfandel – about 60% new for the “Old Vines” bottling, and 100% new for the “Old Ghost.” Barrel aging for the Zins ranges from about 12-15 months. The wine is made by Klinker Brick at the Van Ruiten and Lange Twins wine facilities in Lodi.

Steve had a tasting table already set up for us in the barn next to his house, and we all sat down to taste the two ’05 Klinker Brick Zinfandels (the '04 Syrah had already sold out). The '05 "Old Vine" Zin was sourced from 11 vineyard blocks, the vines ranging in age from 35 to over 100 years old. The winery's flagship "Old Ghost" Zin is always selected from a single lot, but can be from any of the vineyards. Annual production of the "Old Ghost" is between 1,000-2,000 cases. The '05 vintage is from a 93-year old vineyard, producing a yield of just under one ton per acre. The name is an homage to the oldest Zin vineyards in Lodi – and the wooden gift box for the wine is appropriately in the shape of a coffin! Although we didn’t taste the Syrah, we learned that it comes from Farrah Vineyard – named for Steve & Lori's daughter – in Lodi, with a production of only 650 cases for the most recent '04 vintage. They expect around 1,500 cases for the '05.

Steve has a straightforward manner, nothing slick or pretentious about him – not surprising considering his long family history of farming in the area. Those same characteristics were a common thread as we met a number of other long-time Lodi growers-turned-vintners over the next two days. Steve noted that one thing that makes Lodi Zinfandels attractive is that they tend to have relatively soft tannins, making them drinkable right from the start, but that they can age and gain complexity as well. As big as the Klinker Brick Zins are, they display great balance and the current vintage wines are indeed easy to drink – very well-made and some of the best Lodi Zinfandels we tasted.

St. Amant Winery
Our last winery of the day was St. Amant, located in a portion of the enormous old Guild Winery building in Lodi. Parking outside the building, we were glad to head into the tasting room and out of the 90+ degree heat that afternoon. Launched in 1981 by Tim and Barbara Spencer, the origins of the winery are in the vineyard that the Spencers had planted on their 43-acre property in the Jackson Valley area of Amador County. Originally planted with Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc, they grafted two acres of Zin vines to five Portuguese varieties in 1979: Touriga, Tinta Cao, Alvarelhão, Bastardo, and Souzão. They made a traditional Vintage Port from these grapes in 1981 and the winery took off from there. Tim Spencer passed away in 2006, and the winery is now run by the Spencers' son Stuart.

Barbara Spencer attended to some tasks while Tim gathered us all around the small tasting bar. An affable character, Tim told us more about the winery’s background as he poured us the its latest releases. The winery was named for Barbara’s maiden name of St. Amant. The Spencers moved their winery from Amador County to Lodi in 1996, though much of their fruit is still sourced from their own Amador vineyard. They do buy Zinfandel and Barbera from Lodi, notably old vine Zin from Mohr-Fry Ranch.

Like most Lodi wineries, reds make up most of the production. The Spencers grew Roussanne at one time……although it actually turned out to be Viognier. As was the case with many other California growers, they had been sold mis-identified Viognier vines from a nursery. Eventually the Spencers pulled out these vines as they were virused. Reds are typically fermented in stainless steel at about 75 degrees for 7-8 days, in both open- and closed-top tanks. Once in barrel (both French and American oak are used), Stuart does lees-stirring on the reds. Ports have been a specialty since the winery's beginnings. All Ports are made in neutral oak, and some of it is sold to other wineries for their Port programs. Of their total production of around 5,000 cases, old vine Zin is largest production at about 2,000 cases. St. Amant sells about 40% of its wine direct.

Stuart also works for the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission. He noted that about 6-7,000 acres are currently grown under the Lodi Rules program, with about 17 growers now conforming to the Rules. He said that the number will increase to about 25 growers this year. Stuart showed us a copy of the Lodi Winegrowers Handbook, a highly detailed reference published by the Commission that would be of tremendous help to anyone growing wine grapes (or thinking about growing them) in the Lodi area, or anywhere in California for that matter.

As we tasted through the wines, we noticed the attractive new label design, with each wine having a distinctive label photo (gnarly old vine for the Zin, antique corkscrew for the Barbera, etc.). We finished our tasting with a barrel sample of a stunning Tawny Port - this wine goes into barrel and is never topped and never racked……and it's stored in a non-temperature controlled part of the winery. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the resulting wine was outstanding, one of the highlight wines of the weekend.

Overall, St. Amant had an delicious line-up of wines, with a style that was a bit more restrained and understated than most of the other Lodi wineries at which we tasted. Even though a good deal of their fruit is sourced from outside the area, I thought this was one of the most memorable of our Lodi winery visits.

After leaving St. Amant, we relaxed for awhile at the motel where we all stayed in Lodi before heading to dinner. Bob had scouted out restaurants the weekend before our visit, and had recommended School Street Bistro, on a charming street in downtown Lodi. We walked past well-kept older buildings with small shops and cafés, along brick sidewalks with benches and beautiful street-lamps. We spotted the stately Lodi Arch, built in 1907 at the entrance to the downtown area to mark the city's incorporation. Bob made a good call on the restaurant – the food and service were both excellent. The only disappointment of the evening was that two of the bottles of wine we'd brought were badly corked. As we walked back from the restaurant to our cars around 10pm on that Saturday evening, we noted how few people were still out and about…...the restaurant may have been worthy of a sophisticated city, but Lodi still has that small town character.

Michael~David Winery
Bob has a knack for finding good places to eat, and sure enough, he located a fine coffee place on Sunday morning, Java Stop. From there, we drove out west of town where we came to the Phillips Farms fruit stand and bakery/café, which also serves as the tasting room for Michael~David Winery. Like many Lodi grapegrowers, the Phillips family has been farming in the area for generations. They opened their fruit stand alongside Highway 12 in 1975, and it’s become something of a local landmark. When the family started to make small amounts of wine from their vineyards in the mid-‘80s, they chose the logical brand name of Phillips Vineyard, but had to change that because of R.H. Phillips Winery. The winery was renamed after bothers Michael and David Phillips, who are 5th-generation growers in the Phillips Farms business. Michael's son Kevin and daughter Melissa are now part of the business as well.

The winery started fairly small but over the past ten years it’s boomed to a 250,000 case annual production. The main reason for the rapid expansion – the introduction in 2000 of their "7 Deadly Zins.” Originally a clever name for 800 cases of a Zinfandel blended from seven vineyards, this has become a marketing phenomenon and now accounts for about 55% of the winery’s total production. Michael~David now produce seven separate brands (though none of them are called “Michael~David”) with 27 different wines, and are sold in all 50 states and eight foreign markets.

We walked into the fruit stand building and headed over to the small tasting bar where we met Mike Stroh, marketing manager for Michael~David. Mike took us on a brief tour of the winery’s facilities. A good-sized building behind the fruit stand was built for case storage, but the winery quickly outgrew it and now it is used for blending trials. Work is proceeding on more tank storage at the facility, and it will ultimately have a capacity of about 1 million gallons. Barrel aging is done nearby – currently about 3,300 barrels – while case storage and bottling are done elsewhere. Behind the fruit stand, there’s also a small pond with ducks and geese, a petting animal area for kids, a pumpkin patch, and a shaded area with tables and chairs for various events – it’s still a place for local people to socialize while picking up fresh produce and freshly-baked pies. As we walked around the facility, Mike spotted Michael and David’s father Don Phillips, and introduced us to him. Spry and amiable, we wouldn’t have suspected he was going to be celebrating his 84th birthday shortly after our visit.

Mike told us that the family owns about 86 acres surrounding the fruit stand / tasting room. Phillips Farms grows mostly fruits and vegetables in this area, as well as flowers such as lavender and gladiolas. They also raised cattle up until the mid-'90s. They farm a total of about 500 acres and purchase another 500 acres worth of fruit from 65 growers, mostly on the west side of Lodi. Their vineyards include some of the earliest Syrah plantings in California, planted in the early 1980s. Even with the large acreage involved, about 95% of the fruit for Michael~David's wines are hand-picked. They are moving toward having all their growers comply with the Lodi Rules program – Mike said they will pay more and offer more long-term contracts to growers who comply with the Lodi Rules. Michael~David's senior winemaker is Franck Lambert, originally from the Rhône Valley. Also on the winemaking team is Adam Mettler, a 6th-generation Lodi grower. Early on, the winery made more single-vineyard and single-varietal wines, but now do more blends to better suit their many fruit sources.

Back at the tasting bar, Mike poured us many of Michael~David's wines, most of which have witty names which they have marketed very successfully. In addition to "7 Deadly Zins", they make a separate Zinfandel bottling each year with a similar theme – "Lust", "Gluttony," "Greed," and so on. There’s the white equivalent of “7 Deadly Zins” – "7 Heavenly Chards" (aged for 7 months in 7 different cooperages of French oak). Then there’s the Viognier formerly known as Roussanne – mis-identified vines much like at St. Amant and many other wineries – that they turned that to their advantage by creating the Incognito line of wines. And the vineyard source of the first Zin for the family's Earthquake line gave that brand its name – it was planted just about the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The Earthquake line is essentially Michael~David's reserve wines, bigger and with more new oak (mostly French oak except for the Zinfandel). The family's everyday red wine bottling, "Don's Lodi Red" is a blend of a number of grape varieties, both red and white. To honor Don Phillips' upcoming 84th birthday, the café was selling glasses of "Don's Lodi Red" for 84 cents – quite a bargain!

Like most Lodi wines we tasted along the way, Michael~David's reds tended to be big, with a little bit of residual sugar in many of them. While mostly made for the broader market, there’s no denying that the wines are well-made, well-priced, and extremely popular. And of no small importance, Michael~David has shown that an imaginative marketing program may be the big difference in separating a winery from the competition.

Hux
Leaving Michael~David, we said goodbye to Eric Anderson, who needed to get started on his long drive back to Southern California. The rest of us drove back east for a few miles until we reached our next destination, at the house of Tom Leaf’s friend Dave Huecksteadt. Dave and Tom met when both of them worked in the oil industry in Texas. After moving to California, Dave started making home wine with second-crop Zinfandel from vineyards near his house. After Tom also moved to California, Dave got Tom hooked on home winemaking too. Dave is also an accomplished ceramics artist, and he's got a good-sized kiln just behind the house. His wife Barb works for the San Joaquin County Agricultural Department.

We walked back to a small building behind the house where Dave stores some of his wine. He’s a fairly big guy, a somewhat imposing presence in the small space, and he seemed a little reticent talking with our group at first. But he gradually opened up and became more animated, and by the end of our visit he was much more talkative and friendly. He and Barb were both very gracious and generous hosts.

Dave & Barb live on a 5-acre property, formerly an old walnut orchard, with about 3½ acres currently planted with grapevines. Dave has been a home winemaker for about 20 years, with much of his fruit purchased from various Northern California vineyards, but increasingly he’s made wine from his own fruit as his vineyard has matured. As his hobby has become more serious, he’s made some wine recently at a local custom crush facility that may be bottled commercially. In fact, Dave is in the process of setting up a commercial winery, to be called "Hux."

We walked outside where Dave gave us a tour of his vineyard, as the warm morning was turning into another scorching hot spring day. It was here that it seemed he really began to feel more comfortable with our large group, and he clearly took a lot of pride in his vines. A most distinctive feature of the vineyard is the unusually tall quadrilateral trellising system. We were curious as to why Dave installed the trellising so high and he had an entirely practical reason – besides improving the quality of his fruit, the height makes it easy for him to walk under the trellis wires! No question that it was easy to go from row to row anywhere in the vineyard.

He first planted the vineyard around 2000 and it’s grown gradually since then. Dave's vineyard currently has Roussanne, Grenache Blanc, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Mourvèdre, Petit Verdot, Tempranillo, Graciano, Souzão, Teraldago, and Marzemino, and he's planning to add Aglianico soon. He uses most of the fruit himself, though he sells a little – some Petit Verdot and Mourvèdre go to Periscope Cellars in Emeryville for example. There’s no official name yet for the vineyard yet, though Dave may name it "Ernst" after his father. Dave has about 2,000 vines altogether – the largest planting is Petit Verdot with around 900 vines, then Petite Sirah with around 600. The vineyard is all on a drip irrigation system, and most vines are on 5BB rootstock for nematode resistance, an issue with the sandy loam soil at the property (and throughout much of the area).

We were glad to head back inside out of the heat to taste some of Dave’s wines. He loves unusual varieties from many regions – Teraldago and Marzemino, which both originated in the Trentino region of Italy, may be the most obscure of them. Tom had been enthusiastic about having us taste Dave’s wines, but the rest of us knew nothing about Dave or his wines. A home winemaker…..hmmm…..well, I don’t think any of us had great expectations as we started the tasting, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of our entire trip! Not only were the wines well-made, but they were distinctive and complex, and without the overt sweetness that we found in so many Lodi wines. The Roussanne and Petit Verdot in particular were outstanding. And I can say that Dave makes the best Marzemino I’ve ever tasted…….well, OK, it’s the only Marzemino I’ve ever tasted, but it was still awfully good.

It was time for lunch by the time we left Dave & Barb’s place, and we thought we’d head back to the Phillips Farms Café since it was not far from our first afternoon appointment. A few of us stopped briefly at the corner of the road near the Huecksteadts’ house to take a look at some gnarly old Tokay vines. Once the mainstay of Lodi grapes, there are fewer and fewer of the old Tokay vines left as they’re pulled out and the land replanted with other varieties. There’s no telling when the last of the Tokay may disappear from Lodi so we felt glad to be able to see these survivors from the old days. Lunch at Phillips Farms hit the spot. We all ended up ordering tasty salads and iced tea – perfect for the hot weather.

Ripken Vineyards & Winery
We drove the short distance to Ripken Vineyards & Winery, where we met winemaker Madelyn Ripken. Madelyn's grandfather began the family's farming business in 1950. Her parents, Richard & Nancy, met at UC Davis and began planting grapevines on the family's land, with the first planting in 1967. The family currently farms about 600 acres of vineyards on the west side of Lodi, growing over 20 grape varieties. Like many Lodi-area growers, the Ripkens began making their own wines in recent years. They produced their first vintage in 2003, and opened a small tasting room in 2006. They sell about 99% of their fruit, both to wineries (about 40 of them, including such well-known names as JC Cellars and Rosenblum) and to home winemakers. They keep only about 20 tons of fruit for themselves, and make about 1,000-1,500 cases of wine per year.

This is very much a family business. During our visit, Madelyn’s father Richard was in the tasting room pouring wines for us, while her mother Nancy was busy taking care of some paperwork in the winery. A number of other Ripken family members are involved in various aspects of the business. In addition to growing grapes and making wine, they also have a vine nursery business supplying many different grape clones and rootstocks.

Madelyn led us outside to look at an older vineyard block adjacent to the winery. Planted to Cabernet Sauvignon in 1980, it was grafted over to Pinot Gris three years ago. This block has flood irrigation (using a nearby irrigation canal) but most of Ripken's other vineyards are on more efficient drip irrigation. Madelyn told us that the Ripkens manage all of their vineyards under the Lodi Rules program. She pointed out several owl and bat boxes located at the perimeter of vineyard blocks.

We headed back inside and took a quick look through the small winery. With such a small annual wine production, it was no surprise to learn that the winemaking techniques are very hands-on. White wines are barrel-fermented, while reds are fermented in half-ton macrobins, with hand punchdowns. Almost all wines go into French oak, an average of 2-3 years old, and many wines are bottle-aged for about 2 years prior to release. The Ripken family bottles all wines themselves at their facility. The winery’s motto is “No Boring Wines!” – the current wine list shows 17 different wines, reflecting Richard’s long-time love of grape varieties not widely seen in California. Wines are produced in tiny quantities, most of them in bottlings of 100 cases or less.

We stepped into the small tasting room, where Richard poured us many of the winery’s current releases. While Madelyn had been straightforward and even a touch reserved in showing our group around, Richard was much more outgoing and gregarious, clearly enjoying himself. Besides the wines tasted, Ripken also makes Barbera, Tannat, Tempranillo, Montepulciano, and Maxine Rouge (a new variety that is a cross of Barbera, Grenache, Cabernet, and Zinfandel among others). Another unusual variety grown at Ripken is Carmine, a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignane, and Merlot. They use it mostly for blending but do a varietal bottling as well. All their wines are estate fruit from the Lodi AVA – all bottlings are labeled "100% Lodi.” An unusual fact is that some of the family’s vineyards (located on Terminous Island in the San Joaquin Delta just west of Lodi) are located 19 feet below sea level, leading to the name for Ripken’s Under the Sea line of wines.

Although the focus of the Ripken family business is still very much grape-growing, it’s clear that Madelyn, Richard, and the rest of the family are having a great time making their own wines as well. Although it may take a few more years for them to settle into a more consistent style of wines, they’re well on the path that so many other Lodi growers have taken.

Jessie's Grove Winery
Eric Lundblad and Paul had to head home before our last winery visit of the day at Jessie’s Grove, leaving just Bob, April, Al, and me. We’d known beforehand that the winery would be holding a wine club event the afternoon of our visit and that we were not likely to get the same personal attention we’d received at our other stops. But fortunately, most visitors were outside behind the tasting room enjoying the music, food, and other proceedings, so the tasting room itself was not crowded at all. Marcie at the tasting bar was very helpful as she poured us the current line-up of wines and told us a little about the winery’s background.

The winery's roots go back to the 1860s, when Joseph and Anna Spenker settled in the Lodi area to farm wheat. Joseph planted his first grapevines in 1888, adding more as the years went on. His daughter Jessie set aside a 32-acre oak grove on the property, for which the winery is named. It turned out that we’d just missed septuagenarian Wanda Woock– Jessie’s granddaughter – at the winery. Woock’s grandson Greg Burns now runs the winery. Some buildings from the 1870s still stand on the family ranch (including the building that houses the rustic tasting room), and the family's Joseph Spenker museum, located in the oak grove, displays artifacts and photos from the ranch's history. Of particular interest to us was that Jessie’s Grove grows some of Lodi’s oldest Zinfandel vines on their 320-acre property.

Wine conultant Barry Gnekow – who’s been involved with a number of Lodi wineries including Klinker Bric