Lodi

Hopefully someone else here will know which ones are of interest. Lodi hasn't gathered my interest yet. However, 40 miles to the northeast is Plymouth (Amador County) wineries which is one of my favorite areas for Zins. Really a fun area.

Thanks. Maybe I can make it to Amador County. Otherwise...it looks like I will be the afw authority on Lodi wine.

Andy, spewing wine on keyboard

It's too bad the El Dorado area is an hour from Lodi. I've enjoyed my visits there.

Andy, you'll find what you're looking for at a place called Vino Piazza. Housed in an old winery and opened maybe a decade ago, Vino Piazza serves as a sort of winery incubator, home of ten (!) small wineries. It's an excellent opportunity to taste hand made wines rather than the ones made on an industrial scale you'd find at the likes of Woodbridge and Delicato (that said, Delicato often offers good value, particularly their syrah/shiraz). Many of the Vino Piazza wineries source fruit from the foothills as well as the Lodi area, so you don't need to go to Amador or El Dorado to taste wines that use fruit from those areas, if you don't want to make the drive. I've moved out of the area and haven't visited in some time but I see that the Macchia Winery is still there and I was impressed with some of their stuff, so you can start there if you don't want to do all ten. You can read details at

If you're looking for wineries you've "heard of", the likes of Woodbridge and Delicato are what you're going to - wine on an industrial scale. Although Lodi is an up-and-coming area, the Central Valley is not generally known to generate the highest quality raw material for wine - quantity, not quality, in other words. But there is interesting wine to be had in Lodi. If you don't know where to start, I'd suggest a visit to Vino Piazza, which houses something like ten very small wineries. In some cases, they source fruit from the foothills (Amador, El Dorado, Calaveras) as well as from Lodi, so you get a chance to taste wines made from foothill fruit without the hour's drive. I haven't been in awhile but if Macchia Winery is still there, they would probably be worth a visit.

Thanks, that is very helpful. I'm not necessarily looking for wines I've heard of -- it's just that I know too little to know where to start. Your advice is just the sort of response I was hoping for. Thanks.

Andy