In the upper reaches of California's Central Valley, a fruitful flood plain long a prolific producer of generic wines is decanting a distinctive new reputation.
By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food Critic
Published November 16, 2005
SACRAMENTO DELTA, Calif. - To appreciate California wines you have to come here, on the far side of the mountains of the coastal range.
This is a valley in the broadest sense, actually a wide, flat flood plain where on a clear day you can see the future. More often, it's not a clear day where the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers come together and then drift apart.
Fog settles in and the light glistens on endless water meandering in rivers, sloughs and canals that run forever into the distance in a way that makes solid ground seem precarious and your vision hard to trust.
Few out-of-state wine drinkers visit here or can place it - this "delta" is more than 50 miles inland from any ocean and is actually north of San Francisco - yet it's a jumping off point to the biggest wine growing regions of today and great promises of tomorrow.
Smart wine tourists should know about it.
For years, more than 100 miles of vineyards here have been dismissed and unmentioned on wine labels except under the generic "California." For those in the know it was the Central Valley, a hot sweltering land of factory farms and refinery wineries, that pumped out jug wines and fields full of French colombard, flame Tokay and carignane, grapes with less class than Tiny Goodbite and the California Raisins from Fresno.
All the valley did was produce the majority of California's wine year after year - the huge Mondavi plant is here at Woodbridge and the Gallos down the road at Modesto - and most of the state's farm produce, too.
Since that didn't matter, what has the interior done for wine drinkers lately?
Plenty, and in all directions. Re-energized inland growers have taken their best and often coolest vineyards, have played up their longtime success with zinfandel and added new grapes from the Rhone and Spain, and have come up with hip graphics to create smart new labels and reinvent the old.
Follow the San Joaquin River south toward Lodi, Stockton and Madera, where the wineries are big and the vineyards bigger, and you'll find surprising innovation.
The Lodi region actually is not so flat or hot; some of the terrain rolls, and the daytime heat is tamped down by maritime winds sneaking in from the coast. So growers in Lodi this year asked for federal recognition of some of the area's special districts.
The big Mondavi plant sucks up a lot of grapes, but more and more growers and vintners have concentrated on their own wines, especially fine zinfandel and petite sirahs. Old wineries, like Delicato in the flats around Manteca, still make a sweet white called Green Hungarian for the old-time locals, but they show a more modern face to the world: remarkably good reds for under $10, the Clay Station line of viognier and tempranillo, and new quality in boxed wines.
The other big producer of both quality and quantity is Ironstone, with headquarters in gold mine country in the mountains to the east. It was one of the first and still one of the best growers of cabernet franc. More recently, it invented the Leaping Horse brand, which put the Lodi appellation on a very hip label.
Yet the most attention may come from small, enterprising wineries such as Michael & David, a family with a fresh produce market for a tasting room. Their wines run a creative gamut from 7 Deadly Zins to Lodi Red, a mix of syrah, carignane and Symphony, a sweet white grape.
Farther south along the river is Madera, a truly hot vineyard area where bulk grapes are still the rule, many destined for the plainest jugs and the cheapest brandy. Yet clever minds turned some of these old grapes, many from Portugal, into finer stuff, such as Ficklin port, and the cleverest of all the ports and muscat dessert wines of Andrew Quady.
From the delta you could head north too and find more wine. Follow the Sacramento River to the state capitol and the University of California at Davis, the think tank and brain trust of the wine industry.
Some of the greatest momentum is in Clarksburg. That's the home of Bogle, famous for petite sirah under $10. Its other star is chenin blanc, a light white wine that achieves its greatest spice here.
Also up this way, on the west side of the valley, is R.H. Phillips, which has created two more smart, modern brands, Toasted Head and EXP, which specialize in syrah, viognier and Spain's tempranillo.
In this part of California you can't see the Golden Gate or watch whales, and flat land is more common than scenic mountain drives.
But it is wine country, with wine that's more than good and plenty, whether you know it or not.
