Most of us know the words of that classic Credence Clearwater Revival song, “Lodi.”
Just about a year ago
I set out on the road
Seekin’ my fame and fortune
Lookin’ for a pot of gold
Thing got bad things got worse
I guess you will know the tune
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again
Not exactly flattering, right? After making our first trip to Lodi last week, the only thing we can conclude is that John Fogerty and the boys never tried the local wines. Otherwise, they wouldn’t think of hanging out in Lodi as being “stuck.” Over the past few years, there has been quite a buzz in the wine community – especially among bloggers – regarding the ascendant quality of Lodi wines. A chance encounter on Instagram with a real champion of Lodi wines, Jon Bjork, led to an invitation to taste with a winery for which he consults. That then led to introductions, and then appointments, to three other wineries. Thanks to Jon, we not only visited Lodi, but got “stuck” there for a night and ended up staying at the lovely Wine & Roses Hotel. We realized that it would be imprudent, to say the least, to drive to and from Napa (1:45 each way) on the same day after tasting dozens of wines. To be frank, we have not perfected the art of tasting and spitting yet – we still rely on swallowing wine to round out our evaluation of its taste and texture.
Once we settled on a weekend to visit Lodi, we needed to identify 3 to 5 places to visit over the two days we would be there. After all, there are over 90 wineries in Lodi making wine from over 100 different grape varietals. How did we choose? The way we often do – we asked our blogger/social media peeps to give us their top 5 Lodi wineries. While not everyone had the same exact list, there were four wineries that rose to the top and were almost unanimously in everyone’s top 5 list: Acquiesce, Markus, Fields and Bokisch. We ended up having extended tastings at all four of these wineries and came away not only impressed but convinced that Lodi is a wine region that must be reckoned with by the wine world. We expect the region to continue to mature and grow its reputation over the next 5-10 years. We were so impressed by the wines we tasted, in fact, that we purchased quite a few cases on the spot to sell on our online wine store: www.topochines.com.
We will be posting articles about our tasting experience at each of the four wineries we visited starting tomorrow and extending into next week. For now, we will leave you with this excellent introduction to the 100 grapes of Lodi written by Randy Caparoso: 100 Grapes of Lodi.
John & Irene Ingersoll
February 23, 2018
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