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RJC LODI WINE TOUR AND TASTING October 14 & 15, 2006
At 8:00 AM the sky was clear and the air was crisp when fourteen RJC members meet at Gold Ranch Gas Station on October 14, 2006 for their memorable wine tasting trip to Lodi, California. There were eight cars in this procession, five Jaguars, one Lexus, one Ferrari, & one Chevy Truck! Now that all the cars are fueled up it was time to hit the road.
Patti gave everyone “Travel Bags” full of goodies to eat and drink along
the way:
Rich has a “Driver’s Meeting” and then we are on our way for a fun filled weekend:
Our First stop was at the Truckee rest stop. All the cars made it just fine but the Mercedes’ and Ferrari wanted to check their oil:
On the road again to the second rest stop. Here we discovered that the Lexus had a very low tire and needed a gas station for air, (should of brought the Jag!). We found a gas station in Colfax just five miles down the road. We discovered that not all California’s are helpful. A man was more worried about his dog taking a poop, then he was of moving his car out of the way for Sunny to get to the air pump.
We got to “Pierano’s” our first winery of the day just as they were putting out there open sign. What great timing! Our deli-boxed lunches were all ready for us, as was the beautiful picnic spot.
Oh what a deal we got on the wine there! The following weekend Pierano’s was going to host a “Wine Maker’s Special”. The special was 55% off a case of wine and if you were older then the wine maker who was 55 years old (had to prove this with your driver’s license) you got another 10% off! They were so gracious that they offered us this special a week early.
Now that we were all feed the members headed off to their hotels for check in. Rich & Patti went to Jesse’s Grove to get the wristbands for that night’s concert. All met back at the Grand Amis Winery for more wine sampling and buying.
On to the Borra Winery. The owner, Steve Borra, saw our car procession and came out to greet us. He shared some great stories, as we tasted and bought many of his delicious wines.
Patti & Steve Borra
On the road again this time to Spenker’s Winery just a short drive down the road. Spenker’s is another small winery. The man in charge of the tasting room was once again the owner, Chuck Spenker. He too was very informative and we learned all about the bladder press. Both Mr. Borra and Mr. Spenker told us that we really needed to check out a brand new winery in the area. It was less then a mile away so we decided to give it a visit.
Standing in line for wine tasting at Spenker:
The Bladder Press:
Rich showing the ladies the “Cork Trick”:
This winery was called Riken and was run by two sisters, Sue and Madeline. This turned out to be the most fun winery of the day. We got to go behind the scenes and was shown the in’s & out’s of wine making. Many of us have had an experience like this before on last year’s trip to Lodi, but we were so surprised on the new information that was shared with us. Both girls had such enthusiasm of their wines. Their dad would be proud of them.
Sue and Madeline:
On to the concert at Jesse’s Grove we went. We had a caravan over to Rich’s mom’s house who lives across the street and is in walking distance to Jesse’s Grove. This is where we parked our cars to keep them safe. We sure didn’t want anything to happen to them. While there some of us changed clothes for the pending cold that night. We all grabbed jackets, blankets and lawn chairs and put those into the back of the Minedew’s Chevy truck (the truck came in handy here). Dave and Sunny drove the truck over to concert while the rest of us hiked over.
We found a large spot where we could see the band but were far enough back where we weren’t blasted away. The bands that played were: Cold Blood, Highway 61, Little Sister & the Bad Intentions, Mic Gillette & Jon Smith.
We got dinner here. Some of the choices were hamburgers and hot dogs, raviolis, & tri –tip and not to mention Jesse’s wonderful fully bodied wines. As the sunset it the temperature went down,
The glow sticks came out. It is amazing how much fun you can have with a short glowing stick!
We didn’t quite make it to the end of the concert but it was close. We all packed up but instead of hiking back to our cars at Rich’s mom’s house we all got in Dave & Sunny’s truck, some inside the cab and many in the bed. It was lucky we had less then an eighth of a mile to go since we had open bottles of wine on us! We were hoot’n and haller’n and laughing the entire way there. Lucky there weren’t any neighbor’s close by to wake up.
Sunday morning we met at 10:00 AM for a champagne brunch at “Woodbridge Feed and Fuel”. It was so wonderful last year that we decided to put this as our brunch spot again this year and we were not disappointed.
Once again our tummies are full. One more winery, Jewel, then to the Chocoholic’s Factory in Clements.
Some of us had, had our fill of wine for a while and waited outdoors:
Yum, the Chocoholic’s Divine Desserts Chocolate Factory:
Our cars making a nice appearance at the factory. Some cars had to park on the side of the building.
This is were some of us went our own ways while the others followed Rich and Patti through the country side on a scenic and at one point FAST trip home.
Thank you everyone for making this a trip to remember!
Members who were on this trip were: Iain & Wendy Buxton Alex & Philis Evan Mike & Kathy Glass Harry & Pat Keast Dave & Sunny Minedew Rich & Patti Wilder
A Special Thank you to: Shannon at Pierano’s Winery Chuck at Spenker Winery Sue & Madeline at RipkenWinery Suzanne at Jesse’s Grove Ryan & Tommy at Woodbridge Food & Fuel Jewel Winery Staff Staff at the Chocoholic Factory
Notes by Patti Wilder
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