About Us

Our family is in its third generation of growing winegrapes. We still keep four old Tokay vines for sentimental value in recognition of what started it all for the Lodi area. All four present family members are involved in grape-growing and winemaking. Our label shows an artist's rendering of our vineyards and the edge of the Glen. We began home winemaking in the mid 1970's and initiated commercial production with the 1998 harvest.

Our Vineyard and Winery

We seek to offer consumers a choice of wine varieties and styles that differ somewhat from many on the market today, by offering German and Austrian varieties and wine-making styles.

Our viticultural practices include cane pruning (seldom used in the Lodi area) and expanded vertical trellis. We also use a dual irrigation system utilizing the most favorable benefits of both drip and sprinkler. Our efforts to establish a "natural balance" in our fields also include biological controls, a minimum of pesticide use and ground covers.

Our winemaking practices include barrel aging techniques which keep the oak from dominating the wine while allowing it to blend with the natural fragrances and flavors, thereby producing approachable wines. Our small production allows us to give individual attention to each barrel. Our stainless steel tanks have been custom built according to our designs and specifications. They include oversized cooling jackets which give us excellent control over fermentation. Our designs also include adjustable capacity tanks which allows us to fit the tanks to the wine rather than the wine to the tanks.

Family Background

Co-Owner winemaker, Bob Koth is a Lodi native. He served in the military as a paratrooper. After receiving his B. A. degree in Sociology from UOP, he did graduate work at San Francisco State as a social science major specializing in criminology. As a probation officer for two years, he serviced a caseload in West Oakland and West Berkeley. His teaching career spanned 31 years in Lodi. During this time he earned a Juris Doctorate degree and also was instrumental in developing a mountaineering survival class for Lodi Unified School District.

Growing up around a vineyard, he returned later to raising grapes and in 1998 began commercial winemaking after years of amateur home winemaking. Two trips to Germany to visit his daughter, who had scholarships to study there, introduced him to German wines and grape varieties.

Being of German heritage, he wants to keep alive the German heritage of Lodi by specializing in German grape varieties.

SON, BRETT KOTH is the vineyard manager. After graduating from Lodi High School he attended Delta College and received his B.A. degree in Economics from CSU Sacramento.

He was then employed with Mondavi Woodbridge, working in numerous areas of the winery including production and warehouse, but his primary focus was field work in the Grower Relations Department. Employment with San Joaquin County Agriculture Department in the Export Certification Program for apples and cherries added to his experience in agriculture.

Brett is very protective of the environment and takes a leading part in seeing that trees are protected and that recycling is done as much as possible on the property. This has led to his chipping branches into wood chips for ground cover and also using old wood for tables and benches. Used barrels have been made into tables and decor.

Co-Owner, Mary Lou Koth, is a Minnesota native. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from UOP and a Master of Arts degree in Music Education from CSU Sacramento. Her 40 year career included being employed as a classroom teacher, private piano teacher, elementary music specialist and piano accompanist for numerous events.

She enjoys reading, walking, playing piano and is an avid cross-country skier, having participated in numerous citizen ski races including the 30K race from Tahoe City to Truckee.

Marketing and bookkeeping are her primary responsibilities, but she also assists with pruning, harvest and other vineyard and winery production jobs throughout the year.

DAUGHTER, ANN-MARIE KOTH, teaches German at Lodi High School. She attended Delta College and received her B.A. degree from University of Nevada, Reno. As a result of graduate study at CSU Sacramento, she earned her teaching credential and received an exchange scholarship to Johanes Gutenberg University in Mainz. She returned later for one year on a Fulbright grant in Mainz.

Being fluent in German, she coordinates a semi-annual G.A.P.P. exchange program between Lodi High School and the Feldbergschule in Oberursel, Germany for three weeks in April and June. Ann-Marie has also explored her Norwegian heritage by attending summer sessions at Skogfjorden Norwegian Language Village, Bemidji, Minnesota, the Oslo International Summer School and by stopping in Iceland on her way to Norway to visit relatives.

At UNR, she was on the cross-country ski team. She runs, bikes, swims, skis and does an occasional triathlon. She assists, as time permits, with marketing, wine tastings, harvest and pruning throughout the year.

German Collection Wines

German wines are often viewed here as sweet, mild and fruity. However, visits to Germany introduced us to the unique and diverse qualities of German wines. These wines cover the entire range from dry, crisp table wines of lower alcohol content to very sweet dessert wines, also with lower alcohol. The latter can age and improve for decades. This motivated us to research the many German varieties, search for sources of these varieties and establish vineyard trial blocks. We vinted them on an amateur basis prior to choosing which wines to use initially for commercial production. This has taken many years and is an ongoing process as we work with additional varieties.

Our specialty is grape varieties found in the vineyards of Germany today, but we grow them in our own Lodi vineyard. Lodi is obviously not Germany. We do not claim that our wines are exact duplicates of German wines of the same varieties. We feel that our wines benefit from the interaction between the German grape varieties and aspects of German wine styles along with Lodi's own climate and soil.

We strive to follow the German style of producing wines - lower alcohol, crisp acidity - especially with white wines. These goals are achieved by harvesting the grapes earlier than is usually true here. Our whites vary from dry to off-dry to sweet to very sweet (beerenauslese and trockenbeerenauslese sugar levels at harvest in Germany). Our whites are generally fruit-forward with a hint of mineral.

Our reds benefit from the warmer climate in Lodi. For example, sources from Germany indicate that Dornfelder is typically harvested there at 20 to 21 Brix. Here in Lodi we are able to easily reach Brix levels in the mid 20's allowing Dornfelder to achieve qualities not fully obtained in cooler areas. However, we are still able to maintain crisp, smooth qualities in these wines which allow them to complement foods rather than overpower them. This is partly achieved by using a shorter period of barrel aging, thereby preventing the barrel characteristics from overpowering the fruit of the grapes.

The specialization and uniqueness of our production is illustrated by the following:

► We believe that we are currently the only winery west of the Mississippi

River to produce Kerner wine.

► We are currently one of only two wineries west of the Mississippi River to produce

Dornfelder as a varietal wine. We expect that to change as the potential of this

variety becomes better known. However, we will always be the first to have grown

Dornfelder grapes and produced Dornfelder wine in Northern California.

► We are one of the few wineries in the U.S. to produce Lemberger wine and will always

be the first in Lodi to have produced it. Also known by its Austrian name--Blaufränkish.

► Dreirebe is our own proprietary blend of three varieties from our "German Collection".

We believe that one of these three varieties is not grown commercially by anyone else

in the U.S.

► We are also budding vines over to additional German varieties for small commercial

production in the future.

► We currently have 28 varieties in our "German Collection" trial plot and are continually

putting forth effort to increase that number.

► At present we believe that we are the only winery in the U.S. producing all of the four

"German Collection" wines that we now offer.

However, we are not "resting on our laurels." Thus it should be clear that we are continually working to further develop our specialization in "German Collection" varieties.

Prost!!