High wire trellised vines in December in Lodi’s Jahant Viticultural Area.
I am not a Lodi native. I have, however, lived and worked in the appellation since 2010. I am looking forward to a fourteenth year in my adopted home.
For two weeks this past December (2023) I went back to my “roots,” in the Hawaiian Islands. It was refreshing to see a lot of the old places and faces, and it also reminded me of why I now live in Lodi: Because it’s real.
Like Hawaii, Lodi has its own facade; instead of mythical grass shacks and plastic hula skirts, the face of Lodi visible to most of the world is one of low priced wines made to cater to the usual expectations of mass market, supermarket products. Like Hawaii, there is a lot more to Lodi than that.
I recognized it, the first time Mark Chandler—Lodi’s former mayor and the Executive Director of Lodi Winegrape Commission during its first 20 years (1991-2011)—introduced me to Lodi during a visit in 2002.
Mark Chandler checking the sugars during harvest in his Burlington Chandler Vineyard.
The first time I saw Lodi I was immediately reminded of vineyards in South-West France, a region known as Languedoc-Roussillon. For the longest time the Languedoc was known mostly for “ordinary” (or as the French say, vins ordinaire) wines, but anyone who has taken the time to explore this vast winegrowing region knows that there is much more to that. It has its
