Arts
- Simply the best of Lodi
- Star watch: Enjoy a movie in style
- Lo (ho, ho, ha, ha) di
- Rhythm of the night
- A season for a festival
- Keeping it cool: Jazz scene popular in Lodi
Food
- Much more than secret sauce
- Edible, incredible Lodi offers food treats for finicky feasters
- List of area restaurants
Recreation
- Take off!
- Par for the course
- Mokelumne River more than Lodi's northern border
- Fun in them there hills
- Nearby nature: Spend a day exploring Lodi Lake
- Outstanding ornithology: Birds just love Lodi
Shopping
- L.O.D.I. spells hidden treasure in antiques
- Dollars and sense: There are plenty of places to shop in Lodi and the surrounding area
- Chocolate lovers rejoice!
- Find the perfect ‘Lodi' gift
Things To Do
- Perfect day includes walking, eating, playing
- Time alone or with family can be perfect
- Lodi's past comes alive
- Museum reveals Lodi's ag roots
- Move over Wonka
- In all directions, fun is a stone's throw from Lodi
- Discover: The big list
Wine
Perfect pairings
How do you bring together the right wine with the right food? It's a matter of taste
You've probably heard of steak with cabernet sauvignon, fish with chardonnay and barbecued meats with zinfandel. But what do you pair with creme brulée? Thai food? That midnight turkey sandwich?
Lodi wine industry folks have a few ideas and they're probably not what you expect.
Gone are the days when red meat and red wine, white meat and white wine were rules set in stone. These days, a lot of traditional barriers have been broken and people are more open about trying different combinations.
For example, Stephanie Beasly, marketing coordinator at the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission, never has a movie night without popcorn and champagne.
"There's the saltiness and butteriness of the popcorn and champagne really cuts through that," she said.
Some of her other picks include rosé with barbecue and dijon-topped turkey sandwiches with Cava. For ideas, she defers to Wineanswers.com, a Web site that lists some kooky wine and food match-ups, like sparkling wine with fried chicken, sangiovese or sauvignon blanc with pizza and gewurtztraminer with Chinese take-out.
Stephen Putnam, executive chef at Wine and Roses, doesn't mind breaking a few rules with wine and food pairing.
One of his favorite combinations is salmon with red wine. Specifically, he likes to pair their citrus-glazed salmon with roasted beets and baby fennel with an Oregon Domaine Drouhin (Laurene) pinot noir. He also likes lamb with white wine. For his braised shoulder of lamb with heirloom beans, he likes Lucas Winery's chardonnay.
The only steadfast rule he follows is that people should start with the lightest bodied whites and then move their way to full-bodied reds, if they are having a different wine per course.
But are there any foods that simply don't go well with wine?
"No, there are so many varietals now and so many different kinds of wine that you can find a wine to go with anything," said Putnam.
Woodbridge Winery visitor center manager Larry Pilmaier concurs.
"There is no such thing as a bad pairing," Pilmaier said, whose favorites include zinfandel with barbecued meat ("The fruitiness of the zinfandel brings out the fruitiness of the barbecue sauce," he said), muscat with creme brulée and riesling or gewurtztraminer with spicy Thai or Indian food ("The sweetness of the wine cuts through any spice," he said).
But the most important thing is that you drink something you enjoy.
"Robert Mondavi said, ‘Like what you drink and drink what you like,'" Pilmaier said. "It's all about drinking what you enjoy."