Lodi’s Wine Trail gives tasters a real treat

By Greg Kane
News-Sentinel Business Editor

Before they became the Disneyland and Six Flags of wine tasting, Napa and Sonoma were two medium-sized California farming communities with gorgeous views and the perfect soil and climate for growing winegrapes. Small boutique wineries, blooming vineyards and orchards lined intimate roads, and the winemakers themselves stood guard at tasting rooms, talking with guests about their products.

Sound familiar? If not, take a look around. With 50 wineries within its limits — more than half of which have tasting rooms with regular hours — Lodi has become a destination for people looking for a more intimate wine tasting experience.

Kind of like those other towns were all those years ago.

“Lodi today is probably what Napa was 20 years ago,” said Nancy Beckman, executive director of the Lodi Conference Center and Visitors Bureau. “We have beautiful vineyards, a beautiful historic downtown for shopping and dining, and attractions like Lodi Lake. All of that combines to make Lodi unique.”

The Lodi Wine Trail, stretching across the many vineyards circling the city and even as far out as Elk Grove, Clements and Stockton, hits a broad range of local wineries. Visitors and locals can taste the wines of large-scale vintners such as Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi and test labels by smaller winemakers at Vino Piazza.

They can also hop from one winery to the next, trying such local favorites as the Lucas Winery, Jessie’s Grove Winery, Michael-David Vineyards and the Van Ruiten Family Winery while taking in the scenery of the city’s western edge. Meeting the winemakers, trying the wines and seeing the vineyards adds to the wine tasting experience, said Michael Phillips, co-owner of Michael-David.

“People can go to the different wineries and have that experience of seeing the grapes grow and trying the different wines,” Phillips said. “Everybody has their different style, and people get to compare and try new things.”

There’s no better place to try a variety of different winemakers than Vino Piazza, the Lockeford wine plaza featuring 15 different winemakers and more than 75 labels. It was opened in 2000 by Olde Lockeford Winery owners Don and Karen Litchfield as a place where burgeoning winemakers can market their products without having to buy or renting an expensive facility.

“They’re able to start up their winery in a very abbreviated period of time, and on an abbreviated budget,” Litchfield said.

Having so many wineries under one roof is also a plus for people out wine tasting, Litchfield said. Those who aren’t familiar with Lodi wines can park their cars and hang out for a while, trying a variety of different labels and figuring out what they like and don’t like.

“You can’t find this anywhere else,” Litchfield said. “We have people that have been all over tasting wines that say they’ve never seen anything like (Vino Piazza).”

Another place to learn about a variety of local labels is the Lodi Wine and Visitor Center. People new to the area can stop by the center to pick up Wine Trail maps, guides and other materials about the Lodi Appellation.

The Lodi Wine and Visitor Center also features a tasting room where people can sample labels from local wineries that don’t have tasting areas, such as Bear Creek Winery, Ehlers Estates and Mettler Family Vineyards, said Mark Chandler, executive director of the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission.

People traveling from Interstate 5 can take up the Wine Trail along Highway 12 and wind around to Turner Road, where a combined six wineries have regular pouring hours. Coming from Highway 99, people can stop off in Acampo and Woodbridge to check out Peirano Estates Vineyards and Jewel Collection Fine Wines, then travel southeast to Oak Ridge Winery, Klinker Brick Winery and Harmony Wynelands.

People are free to set their own course along Lodi’s Wine Trail — and they’re doing so in higher numbers each year.

“Our traffic has certainly doubled or tripled from last year,” Litchfield said. “The word’s getting out.” Phillips said, “There are people coming from all over the country trying the wines now.”

As long as the region keeps producing fine wines, people will continue to come to Lodi to try them, Beckman said. Once they get here, they’ll want to keep on coming back, she said.

“People are really amazed when they find out what Lodi has to offer as a destination,” Beckman said. “The word is really getting out there that Lodi is a wine country worth coming to.”