Markus Niggli, Markus Wine Company owner/winemaker/grower, with Nicolini Ranch old vine Carignan.
The wines of Markus Wine Company, owned and operated by winemaker Markus Niggli, demonstrate two ways of looking at Lodi’s heritage blocks, emblematic of an appellation known for more acreage of old vines than any other region in California (hence, the entire United States).
• On one hand, Niggli revers old vines as much as anyone, letting vineyards speak for themselves by applying native yeast fermentation, negligible oak influence and minimal intervention throughout the winemaking process.
• On the other hand, Niggli is an artist and master blender—therefore, when he perceives that a wine can be improved by blending, as his partner Jon Bjork puts it, “other barreled wines wines [that] make the wine better, such as filling in a missing mid-palate or improving acidity,” he will do that.
Onset of autumn colors in Nicolini Ranch, an old vine Carignan block on the south side of Lodi’s Mokelumne River AVA.
Is it possible to have it both ways? Going by the ultimate way by which most wine lovers judge a wine—which is, “does it make a wine better?”—the answer is a “yes.”
There is another legendary California winemaker by the name of Randall Grahm, founder of Bonny Doon Vineyard, who is exactly like that. No one talks about terroir (i.e., “sense of place”) and the sanctity of vineyard or grape expression more than Grahm. Yet Grahm, probably more than any other winemaker, has never met a wine that
