Online Tastings

Tastings we do online with others. Usually using Twitter to exchange information about the wine.

Lodi Native Project 2013 Vintage: Letting the Vineyards Shine Through

We recently had the opportunity to taste the second vintage of the Lodi Native Project. This collaborative project is designed to showcase Lodi’s heritage Zinfandel vineyards by producing single-vineyard wines following a standardized protocol involving minimal intervention in the wine cellar. The idea is to show what the vineyard itself has to offer by taking the winemaker’s individual style out of the wine making process. The first vintage, 2012, was released in March 2014 and we tasted that first vintage as well.

Montes: Dry Farming in the Colchagua Valley, Chile

Montes Winery was founded with the goal of producing truly premium quality Chilean wine for export. At a time when Chilean producers were producing wines mostly for local consumption, the two original founders Aurelio Montes, Sr. and Douglas Murray, had bigger plans. The year was 1987 and by the following year Montes and Murray were joined by Alfredo Vidaurre and Pedro Grand and the winery was founded.

Lodi Wines for Earth Day and Everyday

We celebrated Earth Day this year by participating in a online tasting of wine and cheese— naturally. The Earth Day tasting included four wines produced in accordance with Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing and provided a great opportunity to learn about Lodi Rules .

HALL Wines: Two Artistic Napa Valley Cabernets

We continued talking wine education with PROTOCOL wine studio, and several of their guests, while sipping two delicious HALL Wines on a recent Tuesday evening. PROTOCOL wine studio provides wine education via Twitter on Tuesday evenings (search #WineStudio on Twitter) and in their classroom in San Diego. It was fun and instructive.

Saké and Cheese — A Natural Pairing

We recently sat in on a saké and cheese pairing hosted by Charles Communications Associates. The online tasting featured saké made in Forest Grove, Oregon by SakéOne as well as saké imported from Japan by SakéOne. Each of the four sakés was paired with a different cheese provided by Marin French Cheese Company, Laura Chenel and Rogue River Blue Cheese. As we discovered during the tasting, saké makes a great partner for cheese.

Lodi Tempranillo for #TempranilloDay — Five Delicious Choices

Today is International Tempranillo Day. An entire day dedicated to the enjoyment of Tempranillo wine. If you’ve never enjoyed the variety, it’s a good time to do so. If you’re already a fan of the variety, it’s the perfect time to enjoy your favorite Tempranillo or maybe find a new favorite. Here are five delicious choices from Lodi for your #TempranilloDay celebration.

Bechthold Vineyard: Ancient Vine Cinsault in Lodi

The Bechthold Vineyard is 25 acres of Cinsault planted on the west side of Lodi — in the Mokelumne River sub-appellation of the Lodi AVA. This own-rooted vineyard was planted in 1886 by Joseph Spenker. Fortunately the soil on the west side of Lodi is particularly sandy (sandy loam to be exact), and too well drained to allow phylloxera a toehold. That good fortune, along with the family’s desire to preserve this part of their farming history has allowed this gem of a vineyard to remain productive at 128 years of age.

#LodiLive Summer White Wine Tasting

If you’re like many people you think of Lodi as red wine country and Zinfandel country in particular. And while it is true the majority of wine grape production in Lodi is red, there is quite a variety of white grape production as well. Some exciting white wine is being produced in Lodi and this tasting includes just a sampling of those wines.