Jim Natsis, chairman of the Consumer Wine Awards at Lodi, needed a favor Saturday.

How do you like to drink your coffee? Do you like to play team sports, or are you more of a solo athlete? Or, perhaps, do you like pickle juice?

With hundreds of wines entered into the Consumer Wine Awards Competition in Lodi, all adults are invited to taste the competitors, identify their own palatal preferences with professional assistance and have a light dinner for a $25 cost, with proceeds going to the Lodi Tokay Rotary Foundation. The club, with the Lodi Conference and Visitors Bureau and the Consumer Wine Awards, is co-sponsoring the event.

For some, the mention of wine can evoke a slight tinge of intimidation. For the average person who sticks to drinking what's available, what's affordable or what the waiter recommends, understanding wine can be battle that's better not fought.

It's official. Now you can drink the kind of wine you like and not feel guilty about it - and it's a phenomenon that started right here in Lodi.

It's official. Now you can drink the kind of wine you like and not feel guilty about it - and it's a phenomenon that started right here in Lodi.

We all know Julie. She wears big earrings and pink high heels, and on Friday night she goes to the bar before dinner and orders an appletini.

We all know Julie. She wears big earrings and pink high heels, and on Friday night she goes to the bar before dinner and orders an appletini.

Palate fatigue. It's an affliction no self-respecting wine judge wants to succumb to. But 51 souls were quite susceptible to palate fatigue at Monday's second annual Lodi International Wine Awards at Hutchins Street Square as they prepared to judge about 80 wines each.

Judges in Lodi this year evaluated more than 500 wines from around the nation using a new method based not on the traditional standards of wine but on tastebuds alone.

We are smack dab in the middle of a wine revolt!

I'm an insensitive guy. that's according to Tim Hanni's Budometer at yesterday's Lodi International Wine Awards. (See Marc Lutz's great article in today's paper.)

They came from places like Canada, Virginia, South Dakota, New York and even little ol' Lodi. And they all are part of a revolutionary concept: wine that tastes, well, good.

Tuesday, the Lodi-Tokay Rotary Club rushes to the delivery room with its new baby: the Lodi International Wine Awards.

The future of wine tasting is coming to Lodi, and wine lovers are invited to learn all about it. The Lodi International Wine Awards, a closed-judging event, will be offering tours to the public.

The future of wine tasting is here, and it's blue.

A wine competition unlike any other is headed to Lodi.