Photo essay on some of California’s most historic vineyards, plus the fascinating stories of the long forgotten Santa Cruz Island Wine Company and Angelica wines! Re https://rcaparoso.substack.com/p/photographic-ode-to-old-vines-other
#randycaparosophotography #missiongrape #angelicawine #cinsault #cinsaut #zinfandel #carignan #carignane #flametokay #santacruzisland #santacatalinaisland #pinotnoir #chardonnay #oldvines #ancientvines #ownrooted #historicvineyard #historicvineyardsociety
A rosé that thinks it’s a red Take a gander at this bottle of wine adorned with the plainest of labels, explaining exactly what it is: The 2024 Kirschenbloom Lodi Rosé ($24), produced and bottled by Sandlands Vineyards. However, looks can be deceiving. There is nothing plain or ordinary about this wine because it is already a game changer in the Lodi wine scene, perhaps in all of California. First thing you notice through its clear glass is that it is a very rosy, an almost reddish colored rosé. I can tell you, after having tasting it, that it is dry as a bone, very lively and energetic with prickly fresh fruit acidity, and deep, deep in flavors suggesting peak season cherry with a touch of kitchen spice. The wine’s dryness, in fact, is only emphasized by the barest sensation of tannin, the firming sensory quality derived from skins and seeds of grapes normally found in red wines. It is a rosé, in fact, that tastes as light and zesty as any of today’s rosés, yet is a little richer than that. It has a sturdiness that forces you think of a red wine as you sip it...
Early morning Picpooul Blanc harvest, Acquiesce Vineyards, Mokelumne River-Lodi appellation. How is your contemporary wine grape IQ? Are you up on the latest "alternative" varietals? Should you even care? If a grape makes perfectly delicious wine, I would say "yes" to the last question. The way I see it: There are many grape varieties—hundreds of them, probably, grown all over the world—that may be new, unknown, exotic or even strange to most of us here in America. Yet in the parts of the world where these grapes come from, they are practically pedestrian, making perfectly familiar drinking wine. What may be strange here is usually an everyday thing elsewhere. Or vice versa. Take, in a reverse-case scenario, a grape everyone knows here in California: Zinfandel, which (despite the commercial dominance of grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay) is still the most widely planted grape in Lodi. Zinfandel, however, is not grown in Spain, France or Germany, three of the largest wine countries in Europe. And why should Spain, France or Germany care about Zinfandel? They have plenty of grapes of their own to make wine from...
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