Last weekend my wife and I, along with a group of friends, took a quick overnight trip to Lodi.

This post is a photo essay of our first day. Since it’s a mostly a photo essay, I decided to try something new and post it entirely from my iPhone while the memories are still fresh.

The photos are in chronological order and mirror our itinerary for the day.

I chose this particular itinerary because I wanted to highlight the diversity of Lodi wine to my friends, who were first time visitors to Lodi. The itinerary also follows a pretty logical route which minimizes crisscrossing Lodi wine country.

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Our first stop was the Town Corner Café and Market which specializes in seasonal and sustainable foods. We picked up sandwiches to go for lunch. Next time I’ll come hungry for breakfast because the breakfast menu was right up my alley!

They also have a market with a selection of hand-picked, small batch crafted, quality foods and artisan creations.

We picked up a sandwich and a salad for picnic lunch at our next stop…

We made a reservation for a Patio Tasting Experience, which included a great cheese plate. It’s a beautiful property, that includes a spacious tasting room, patio area, and a big, beautiful farm-house. Our host, Ted was gracious, knowledgeable and took us through their deep and diverse wines. He also shared some great history of the property with and told us the two theories of how Lodi came to be named.

After the tasting we retreated to  their spacious patio and enjoyed our picnic lunches!

It was a great start to the day! We’ll definitely be back!

Our next stop was M2, where we ended up tasting and doing an impromptu discussion about grape growing and winemaking with “slightly outspoken” Partner and Winemaker Layne Montgomery. A very nice bottle of their Tannat found its way home with us!

Thereafter,we headed one of my favorite Lodi wineries – Acquiesce where Owner/Winemaker Sue Tipton is crafting premium white and rosés Rhône varietal wine. The fact that Acquiesce is only make white and rosé underscores, in my opinion, that while Lodi is the self-proclaimed “Zinfandel Capital of the World” some it’s best wines are actually white wines.

Their charming tasting room housed in a century old barn. They offer some great small plate pairings with some of their wines (included in the modest $10 tasting fee waived with bottle purchase).

My faves this day were the 2017 Picpoul Blanc, Clairette Blanche, and the Grenache Rosé( which found its way home with us)!

Our last winery visit was Bokisch Vineyards, which is primarily focused on making wines from Iberian grape varieties.

Aside from the wonderful wines, what I enjoy about Bokisch is the views of the rolling hills of their estate Terra Alta Vineyard. They’ve got a great picnic spot shaded my a huge Oak tree, or you can do what we did and simply savor the view while enjoying their wines.

My faves this day were their Albariño, Verdejo, and Tempranillo.

After a full day of tasting, we went of a little walking tour of Downtown Lodi to get the lay of the land, before checking into to our hotel.

After resting up a bit there we had dinner at the Towne House Restaurant at Wine & Roses.

We had a remarkable meal there (one of our friends had the Sous Vide Niman Ranch Pork Chop, which he was still talking about a week later!) capped of with a delectable trio of desserts.

I would say mission accomplished, in terms of sampling the incredible diversity of Lodi’s wines.

We tasted wines made from Albariño, Cotese, Falanghina, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Verdejo, Tannat, Graciano, Picpoul Blanc, Clairette, along with the usual suspect Zinfandel.

It was a perfect day of Lodi wine, food, and its charming hospitality!

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