Lodi is a town in the Central Valley of California that also gives its name to an American Viticultural Area (AVA). Cooler than either the northern or southern halves of the valley, this prolific farming region was populated from the late 19th century by largely German smallholders who formed large Co-operatives to sell their grapes to large marketing companies such as Candandaigua, Sebastiani, and JFJ Bronco in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The deep, rich-soiled valley floor was built up by alluvial deposits from rivers running out of the Sierra Nevada then pooling before running out to the Pacific through the Central Valley Delta and San Francisco Bay. Lodi is inland from, less watery and thus warmer than the Clarksburg AVA to the north west, but much less warm than Madera, Fresno, and other districts further south in the San Joaquin Valley.1
Settled at the northern tip of the San Joaquin Valley just east of the San Francisco Bay, where the fertile and diverse soils begin to make their gentle ascent to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Lodi boasts a classic Mediterranean climate consisting of warm days and cool evenings accented by a gentle maritime wind from the Sacramento River Delta. This delta breeze makes Lodi unique among other areas of the San Joaquin Valley as the lower temperatures allow the ripening fruit to retain natural acidity. Lodi is also remarkable in the diversity of its soils, though they can generally be characterized as deep and composed of sandy loam, sometimes spotted with the large stones reminiscent of the famed “galets” of the Chateauneuf-de-Pape region in southern France. The Lodi AVA covers 551,000 acres, beginning at the Delta and running south and east, ending where the Sierra Foothills begin. The 800 growers in Lodi farm over 90,000 acres of winegrapes and produce more of the top five California varietals — Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel — than any other wine district in California.”2
1 The Oxford Companion to Wine.
2 Appellation America.Com
