Loving Lodi - A Wine of the Month Club Favorite

The hotel is located directly east of San Francisco on the edge of the Sacramento River Delta, the Lodi wine region is one of the oldest in California. Lodi grapes do not wait for people to transport and maintain them. They were in the area native, hanging from the trees along the riverbank. An ideal climate for premium wine grapes, warm days with cool nights followed when sea breeze from the San Francisco Bay through the tunnel and blowing over the Carquinez StraitsCountry.

In the past, grape farmers most of their fertile crops sold to a handful of giant commercial wineries, including Mondavi Woodbridge, Turner Road wine and Sutter Home Winery. But in the last ten years, small premium wineries have quadrupled over 60. From the year 1800, Lodi Zinfandel has been proudly and a Wine of the Month Club Favorite.

The region claims some of the oldest Zinfandel vineyards in California, whose fruits are purchased by theis on the Turley and Robert Biale Napa. The phylloxera root louse which destroyed vineyards in California in the early 1990s, could not in sandy soil is available and saves heritage Lodi vineyards as old as 100 years.

Vino Con Brio

Vino Con Brio, as much as any other Lodi winery, illustrates the history of the region that the huge commercial vineyards and now includes a growing number of small premium producers who produce wine of the monthClub selection. Anne Matson Mike Matson's father and her grandfather was farming cherries and grapes since the 1970s and eventually include 650 hectares and 400 hectares of cultivated vineyards, cherry, commercially produced Chardonnay and Merlot, which they sold to wineries.

The market is saturated with these two grape varieties, and someone made an offer that could not refuse her grandfather, "says Anne. After the sale of her father purchased 53 hectares on the cooler east side of LodiAppellation, and the family began its trip in the premium wine growing and winemaking for the commercial, retail and wine of the month club market. Planted in 1942, the Locust Tree Vineyard home to their old vine Zinfandel.

The Amorosa Vineyard is on 13 different hot region planted varieties, notably Italian and South African Pinotage. Their tasting room is located here as well as the Amorosa Inn and Gardens, which Anne's mother, Renae running. The family remainsto farm the cherry ranch.

Anne Matson studies at the University of California, Davis, a year in Italy in 1989, where the family had vacationed several times Matson. "I had always been an affinity for Italy. I learned the language and the arts, stuck my nose at some of the basement and had a wonderful experience. That's when I really enjoy red wine. I was not quite 21 am start time, but the Italians do not care. It is a beautiful thing. "

AfterStudies with majors in political science and communications, she worked in San Francisco in the financial field and five years ago joined the new winery, the sales and marketing for all markets, including the Wine of the Month Club lists. Last year, she was general manager of Vino Con Brio.

Anne explained that the wine its name from the musical term brio. "My father has always been very into the music. On the notes, brio means that the music is playedwith vitality, passion and vitality. We thought that Vino con Brio had a certain ring, and we ran with a fine thread through the Italian wineries, even if we do a bit of Italian. "But she explains that her maternal aunt married into an Italian family with whom Matson have a close relationship will lead, along with part of the family, her uncle, the Italian companies cherry orchards.

Vino Con Brio is now producing 5000 cases of wine per year, and Anne says that shecould be as high as 9000 cases of wine of the Month Club distribution. But they want to minimize their production to focus on quality, and continue to sell most of their wines directly to customers in the tasting room, in Lodi, the local wine shops and wine of the month club members, although some of Anne's their wines, several small dealers in Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Minnesota.

The family has decided to make wines thatdo not make other, "she says. "We do not want on the 213th Chardonnay on a supermarket shelf have. That's not us. We strive for the unique and the very best for the exact spot where we are likely in Lodi plants."

Vines Lodi

Lodi has always been known for its premium Zinfandel, known mainly from old vineyards. Thus Zinfandel was part of the plan from the beginning. Their vines are 40 years old, says Anne, the only middle-aged in Lodi. "II can be a few vineyards in the area who are aged over one hundred years. "

Together with Zinfandel, the Matson focus on southern European and South African Pinotage grapes, as these regions warm climates that are similar to Lodi. Anne says that they do very well with white Sauvignon, Viognier, and Pinot Grigio and Red like Grenache, Petite Sirah, Mourvedre, Sangiovese and Pinotage, all the wine of the month club favorites. Some experimentalAglianico from southern Italy is very promising, she says.

A cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, Pinotage South Africa, St. Anne's as the "Pinot Noir on steroids" is the surprise element in the Vino Con Brio portfolio. "It has a lot of the flavor of each file that you find in Pinot Noir, but it is a little bigger, a little bolder, more in your face. With the change of government and the sanctions in South Africa in the last 20 years, repealed It's been an influx of South AfricanWines that were previously unavailable, and I think over time they have the curiosity of California producers to their peak. "

My grandparents went to South Africa in a little more than a decade and brought a bottle of Pinotage to my father, because it's heritage grape of South Africa. The examined him, the variety, and he later realized that Lodi and Cape Town, exactly the same amount of heat summation tables. And both areas have the same sandy soil base, so that's whathave led us to experiment with the varieties here. It is made quite well. "

Particularly powerful, Anne Matson proved to be a tremendous administrator Vino Con Brio. Soon to be married, she changed some of their expected duties at the winery. "If someday I have children, I am sure they will to me about the work of the 60-hour week, plus I'm doing now to prevent it. But I see myself in any case always involved with the wine in any way. "