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Lodi Zinfest 2007, What a Party!

This was the third year the Lodi Wineries hosted a party to celebrate their fine wines, and most particularly their great Zinfandels. It runs over three days, starting with a Vintner's Grill and wine tasting on Friday night, the full event on Saturday and open houses at the wineries on Sunday. We chose to attend the Saturday event that ran from noon until 7:00 PM. The event was held at Lodi Lake, a beautiful park just northwest of the city of Lodi on Turner Road. Situated between the Mokulmne River on the north and west and Lodi Lake on the south, this is an oasis on a warm valley day. It was a beautiful day; warm, but there was a nice breeze blowing making the heat more than bearable.

We arrived about an hour after the gates opened and there was quite a crowd already assembled. It was obvious from the beginning this was not going to be your standard wine tasting event; no suits and ties here. It was a typical late spring California day and everyone was dressed the part and ready to have a little fun. It was obvious that the people of Lodi view this as a family event and supply things to do way beyond sampling the great winery fare, such as delightful entertainment and more than adequate food and shopping.

We wasted no time in starting our wine tasting. We were determined to try as many Zins as possible and with 45 different wineries in attendance, and most of them pouring at least two Zins, it was going to be hard to narrow it down to the ones we could realistically try in the few hours we had available to us.

Even though we were there fairly early the lines at the winery booths were a bit long; the longest seemed to be around the wineries that had made the list of the twelve best Zins in Lodi. These are the twelve Zinfandels picked by the Winegrape Commission to be the twelve that best represented the flavor profiles and style of the region. Continued ...