The weekend was kicked off with a 50th birthday party and ribbon cutting for a friend. The party had a 50's theme. And it was held at a bar...of course. Joy and I dressed the part and went out to Oakridge Winery to pick up wine for the party. We are wine club members at Oakridge for one simple fact, good wine for a great price. Oakridge is the second oldest winery in Lodi. Their tasting room is in a giant redwood wine barrel. The staff is friendly and the average bottle of wine is $15. And let me preface this, our friends call us wine snobs. However, that being said we actually like the box wine they offer. It is a full 4 bottles of wine all in one box for only $23. The wine lasts up to three weeks after opening. It makes great party wine because for less than $50 you can show up with 8 bottles of good wine. They make red blend, cabernet, zinfandel and chardonnay.
While at the party we received a call from some new friends from Reno, Nevada on Saturday. They invited us to come visit them at their sons new Airbnb. Being the unofficial host of Lodi wine country we, of course, obliged. The gathering ended for the night at about 2:30am when one of the adult kids came into the room for the second time and shushed us. So we took uber home, but that's not the end of the weekend...
We got up around 10:30am and called our friends from Reno to see if we could show them more of Lodi before they went home. They, of course, said absolutely! So we picked them up at the Airbnb and headed to Dancing Fox Winery/Restaurant located in gorgeous downtown Lodi. What you will find when you arrive is old world French decor. The pictures on the walls are the same as the wine bottle labels. We were greated by friendly staff who stated there was a 45 minute wait, however we can do some wine tasting while we wait. It smelled amazing since they do a Sunday brunch until 2pm...including mimosas.
We meandered to the back of the building through a hall and arriving in a rustic French style tasting room. We were introduced to the tasting menu by a friendly server who explained that there is a complimentary tasting if we are waiting for a table. The server started with sparkling wine which was quite good. We then moved on to the red wine. At that point the owner/wine maker/grape grower, Greg came out to help serve us. We introduce Greg to our guests. He is always down to earth and gave a ton of information to our guests over about 30 minutes until our table was ready. On the way out we purchased and opened a very yummy bottle of Old Vine Zinfandel to share over lunch.
Lunch was amazing as always with great service and great food. Greg again came out to talk to us about the new beer his son is making. We tried a an IPA, which was clean and refreshing.
As we explained to our guests, this incredible wine and down to earth home feel they experienced is a normal occurance in Lodi. Our friends were so impressed that they asked us to guide them through all of Lodi Appellation over time.
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