There is obviously plenty to criticise in the poster below espied in winemaker Tegan Passalacqua's house in Lodi. There is the casual appropriation of the geographical terms Burgundy and Sauternes (the latter spelled without its ending 's' as well), and there is the assumption that each tastes better with ice and soda. And let us leave to one side whether the woman is tempted to spill the whole tray over the lordly man.
But this advertisement, which ran in Life and Look magazines in the early 1940s, is also revealing because of the name of the company behind it. In the bottom left-hand corner is the name East-Side Winery of Lodi, California, then one of the biggest in the state.
It was to Lodi that Cesare Mondavi moved from Minnesota in 1923, during Prohibition, to participate in the thriving business of shipping grapes back east for home winemaking and ‘sacramental’ wine. It was here that he brought up his family, including his sons Peter and Robert. In that era Lodi was a far more important wine centre than Napa, a 90-minute drive west.
Lodi is still a major producer of grapes (in 2022 it boasted over 100,000 tons of Cabernet grapes, as opposed to 70,000 cropped in Napa) and its old vineyards are being celebrated by the winemaking likes of Passalacqua and Stuart Spencer (about which Jancis will be writing). And it is finally possible to get good coffee, bread and pastries in Lodi.
The first stop for any visitor ought to be Ruby’s Bakery on South Church Street. Owners Lynn and Fausto Echeverria met and worked together for 14 years at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco where he began as a washer-up before graduating to being responsible for the croissants in their six different locations. Now, every morning he comes into Ruby's at 3.30 am to prepare the doughs for his lucky customers in Lodi. The bakery is named after their daughter because Lynn has such strong memories of growing up in her own family’s restaurant in Livermore. Their coffee and coffee cake are excellent and the whole place is suffused with the aromas of a great artisan bakery.
It is only a little later, at 6.30 am, that chef Nick Guantone’s father walks into their family restaurant, Guantonio’s, only a few blocks away, to begin making the doughs for that night’s pizzas. The focus of the restaurant is the beauty of Northern California agriculture and the medium is pizza. But just as important to Nick and his family is his thoroughly ‘family style’. His mother, wife and, occasionally, children are involved too.
All this I gleaned from meeting Nick in his restaurant one morning and then enjoying a lunch he cooked for six of us later that day. First up was a dish of anchovies, burrata and home-made potato crisps as well as a plate of local carrots with their bright green fronds, from Hana Acre Farm in nearby Wilton, and a superbly creamy sauce of anchovies and miso that he calls bagna cauda. Then came a dish of shaved fennel, diced Zuckerman’s asparagus, savoury granola and nigella seeds, all topped with slices of Parmesan and bottarga, as shown below.
The main course consisted of two types of sausage, Dakota and Wisconsin, produced by the one remaining local company (there were once 11, reflecting the town's strong German heritage) that still draws queues in Lodi. They were served with a home-made aioli, carefully cooked beans, a green salad and crisp baguettes from Ruby’s Bakery. Dessert was a panettone brought by the inimitable Darrell Corti of Corti Brothers in nearby Sacramento.
Lodi will continue to be the source of exceptional grapes and its hospitality offerings will surely only grow. But it will never, certainly in the short and medium term, prove to be as attractive to visitors as the Napa Valley. Here, a week of sunshine, cool mornings and glorious sunsets combined to underline why so many people flock here to live, to taste and, of course, to eat.
Restaurant eating had been my intention although it was somewhat stymied by various hosts’ generosity and their ability to roast lamb which restricted my visits to three distinctive restaurants, all of which have now reached maturity.
The oldest was a return dinner at Mustard’s Grill, an experience that was like putting on an old pair of slippers. The welcome was warm. The service, from Alyshia, could not have been better. The sun was setting, casting long rays of light across the busy dining room. And the place, at 6 pm on a Tuesday evening, was packed. (Eating early is a habit here – ‘we’re only farmers’ was one explanation we heard but we didn’t quite believe it.)
Mustard’s is an example of a restaurant that combines maturity (it is now over 30 years old) with generosity. The long, rather unfashionable menu comprises more than 30 items, including the mountain of onion rings shown above, and delivers them with aplomb. An appetiser of ‘crazy good chicken wings’ left one of us wondering how this was consumed normally as a first course by a single diner. I could have asked the same about my order of wood-oven-smoked duck that comprised most of the breast and a leg, but somehow I managed to finish almost all of it. The only option when ordering their lemon-lime tart with its ‘ridiculously tall brown sugar meringue’ is to ask for at least two spoons.
Their wine list is just as impressive. There are over 100 offerings of each of red and white, beginning with a dozen half-bottles of white and a long list of currently extremely popular Sauvignon Blancs before an even longer range of Chardonnays. Of the reds there is a long list of Pinot Noirs, before some popular imports such as the wines of Alain Graillot, Rostaing and Famille Perrin alongside Lang & Reed, Turley and Ridge from California. Presumably most of Mustard’s customers are either wine producers or wine aficionados.
The ‘old glove’ analogy applies equally well to Cook on St Helena’s Main Street, which is managed with great care by Meagan Rounds and where the cooking is as meticulous in the hands of her husband Jude Wilmoth.
The restaurant is dark and narrow, with an open cooking range at the far end where Wilmoth is in charge of an all-Latino brigade of three. I was shown to a seat at the far corner of the counter opposite the bar but with a clear view of the kitchen.
I immediately wished that Jancis had been with me. This is ‘the spot’ for those in the wine industry to meet, to talk business over lunch or dinner, or just to meet and gossip. Sadly, on this occasion I was on my own as she was busy tasting.
As this was a Monday lunch, after a heavy Sunday night, I did not even ask for the wine list, concentrating instead on their relatively brief, but extremely well executed Italian menu. I began with their minestrone, topped, as the waiter precisely described with great enthusiasm, by ‘a herbed Parmesan’. This was an extremely lively combination of herbs and melted cheese which added piquancy to the warming soup. This I followed with another of my favourite dishes, spaghetti with Manila clams and shrimp (see above) served in a spicy broth, a dish that was both well cooked (perhaps the peppers could have been more finely trimmed) and extremely generous. My bill with service came to $60 including service but without dessert or coffee.
The most exceptional meal of the week was at Press, just south of St Helena on Highway 29, in an elegant structure that is not unlike a circus tent in its height and simplicity. Here the kitchen is at one end; at the other are wooden, glass-fronted cupboards full of wine racks that lodge the restaurant’s award-winning wine selection. Outside was an enormous fire pit and beyond that the setting sun.
But this time around we ignored the wine list as, thanks to our generous host Greg Gregory, wine relationship ambassador and managing director of Silicon Valley Bank, we were to enjoy: the 170th Édition of Krug Grande Cuvée; 1993 Bonneau du Martray and 2014 Drouhin Corton-Charlemagne; Gaja Barbarescos from 1961 and 1964; 1982 Mouton Rothschild and a 1994 Cabernet from Grace Family Vineyards. Quite a line up (the Mouton was my favourite, the rare '61 Barbaresco Jancis’s). See the bottles at the top of this article.
Press was founded by the late Leslie Rudd and is now controlled by his daughter Samantha Rudd while the kitchen is under the direction of Philip Tessier as executive chef and Vincenzo Loseto as head chef, who combine to write a fascinating menu. I began with a dish of citrus-cured yellowtail belly while Jancis polished off a plate of beef-fat potatoes with smoked sour cream so quickly that I was not offered even a taste. I followed this with a dish of poached lobster, monkfish and charred broccoli that was rich but satisfying. Our ‘avant dessert’ was a refreshing combination of lemon and melon. I long to return for one dessert, a pavlova with a mandarin sorbet.
A full 43 years after my first visit, drinking and eating out in Napa excited me yet again. And so too did Lodi, and Yountville, where Thomas Keller together with caviar expert Shaoching Bishop have combined to open Regiis Ova, a caviar and champagne bar designed to attract Napa Valley's more hedonistic visitors. We were introduced to Bishop at her lively presentation of various caviars to members of the Napa Valley Reserve, the club associated with Meadowood. Champagnes at the dinner afterwards were skilfully chosen by Kelli White, education director for Meadowood's Wine Center.
Also in Yountville, and somewhat less expensive, at Bouchon Bakery baker Rayme Fuentes makes excellent sweet buns called kouign-amanns (the key, apparently, is to use the offcuts from the morning’s croissant dough).
Ruby’s, 11 S Church St, Ste B, Lodi; tel: +1 (209) 400-7972
Guantonio’s, 600 W Lockeford St, Lodi; tel: +1 (209) 263-7152
Mustard’s Grill, 7399 St Helena Hwy, Yountville; tel: +1 (707) 944-2424
Cook St Helena, 1310 Main St, St Helena; tel: +1 (707) 963-7088
Press, 587 St Helena Hwy, St Helena; tel: +1 (707) 967-0550
Regiis Ova, 6480 Washington St, Yountville; tel: +1 (707) 947-7181
Bouchon Bakery, 6528 Washington St, Yountville; tel: +1 (707) 944-2253
