Jun. 7—For the Lodi Winegrape Commission and Visit Lodi, one of their main priorities is to make Lodi a destination city and “put it on the map.”
They were able to do that this week when a group of 12 wine lovers and experts converged on Lodi to connect with the community, land, and people behind the labels, working the soil, and shaping change in the industry.
The group is part of an annual Field Blends trip created by Maryam Ahmed, a professional in the food and beverage industry who wanted people to forge deeper connections with the regions they visit during wine tours, rather than just sampling wares and moving on to the next winery.
“I felt with creating Field Blends, there wasn’t as much connection to a place that people were experiencing on traditional wine tours or press tours, where goal is to see as many places as you can, drink as much as you can, eat as much as you can, with not as much care as to how we got here as a wine place or food place,” she said. “I just wanted to take a different approach to how people immerse themselves in a region.”
The program, now in its fourth year, centers on the wine industry but also explores a region’s land, labor force and agricultural practices.
As an example, Ahmed’s group visited LangeTwins in Acampo to not only taste the winery’s fare, but to get a glimpse as to how the family grows its grapes and makes its varietals.
In addition, the group visited the San Joaquin Historical Museum at Micke Grove Regional Park to learn about Lodi’s history not only as a wine destination, but how the city was born some 150 years ago.
Guests on the trip came from Jackson, Miss., Boston, New Jersey and New York, among other places, and Ahmed said each year, at least 80% of attendees have never set foot in the region they visit.
“They come understanding that the education we provide is definitely going to be different than a traditional wine tour or setting,” she said. “They are really open-minded people who are curious about what’s going on behind the curtain, and they’re excited to find new stories and understand a place better. You can go to any region with that mindset.”
Field Blends went to northern Michigan last year and to Finger Lakes, N.Y. in 2023. The first trip was to Walla Walla, Wash. in 2022, and Ahmed said she wanted to make Lodi the first destination the program visited in California.
“Bringing the trip to Lodi, as someone who lives in California and is embedded in the wine and food culture here, I didn’t think we could tell the story of California wine through our Field Blends lens without starting first in Lodi because of the importance of its history to the California market, the broader U.S. market, and its kind of heritage orientation in California,” she said.
Krishna Chapatwala owns a wine shop in Atlanta, and had tasted a select few varietals from the area before coming to Lodi, and came on the trip to learn all she could about Lodi wines.
“As a wine purveyor, we don’t get a lot of Lodi wines in Georgia, but we do get lots of wines from other areas in California,” she said. “So I found myself saying ‘I want to go to this, learn about Lodi, the winemakers and owners, and then be able to bring those wines in and have the connections and that story.’ Now I can affirm that Lodi is amazing.”
There are about 30 wineries in Georgia making Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and other “standard” wines, Chapatwala said, but they all use grapes from California, Oregon and Washington.
The wineries are in the early stages of making their own products, she added, and some have begun planting Albarino or Gruner Veltliner grapes to see what will grow in Georgia’s climate.
Chaptawala said what she learned about Lodi this week was that there are several winemakers and owners growing everything except Old Vine Zins, which is what most Georgians see as the standard wine to make in California.
“The atmosphere, soil and climate is so versatile that any and all grapes can be grown here, which is usually not the case,” she said. “And that gives Lodi the upper hand in that they have the versatility to produce 100% Cabernet Sauvignon or 100% Petit Sirah or Old Vine Zin.”
Brooklyn native Luis Gomez works at an Italian restaurant in New York, and had never tasted a Lodi wine prior to the Fields Blend trip. He took his first steps in a vineyard at LangeTwins on Wednesday.
“It was really amazing,” he said. “I was drinking a wine, and I was in the very vineyard the produced the grapes in the wine I was drinking.”
Gomez has a friend in Sacramento who was checking up on him during the visit, asking him what he thought of Lodi. He told her he was “falling in love” with the city.
“It’s nice that its a nice mix of rural and city,” he said. “It’s not like you have to drive out to see farmland. Its right there.”
What he found most interesting about Lodi wineries was how they seemed to be a part of a tight-knit community.
“At LangeTwins, they’re all working together,” he said. “To see Aaron (Lange, co-owner) out in the fields and Marissa (Lange) in the tasting room, it was a totally different dynamic. One’s rustic, one’s polished, and it made me wonder what the dynamic was in my own town.”
Ahmed was able to bring the Field Blends trip to Lodi with the help of Lodi Winegrape Commission Executive Director Stuart Spencer and Lodi Crush co-owner Gerardo Espinosa, both of whom she met about a year ago.
Espinosa was tapped as the Field Blends community partner for the trip, helping Ahmed connect with a variety of Lodi officials.
“I thought it was a great opportunity for Lodi to showcase what we have here,” he said. “The culture, the heritage, the people, the community. I think it’s something that scholars from all over the country can take with them and share with friends and families, clients and connections, and make Lodi a destination for them to come back and visit, or suggest to others.”
Stewart said meeting the Field Blends group was a great experience, and he’s optimistic the attendees will help put Lodi wines on shelves across the country.
“They are a diverse group of individuals working in wine, education, as sommeliers and retailers,” he said.
“When we bring people here, we win. And they go out and become ambassadors for wine in whatever role they may have moving forward. It definitely helps pave the way for Lodi wine to be sold across the country.”
Visit Lodi Executive Director Wes Rhea said the agency loved that Fields Blend was comprised of members of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color — or BIPOC — community, and believed the group would be able to tell Lodi’s story to friends and families in their home states.
“I personally love to watch people experience Lodi through their own eyes,” he said. “It really helps us through a Visit Lodi perspective, because sometimes we uncover some rocks because some people may see something we might take for granted.”
To learn more about Field Blends, visit www.maryamandcompany.com.