With a fervent commitment to old world winemaking principles and practices, live-for-the-vine Winemakers Heather Pyle Lucas and David Lucas founded their modest namesake winery in 1978. At the time, it was Lodi’s first and only artisanal winery to demonstrate the highest potential of the Lodi Appellation. Through the years, The Lucas Winery has taken the long view, maintaining a steadfast reputation for organically grown CCOF-certified and sustainably certified balanced wines, crafted in a winery that is 100 percent solar powered.
The Lucas Winery’s historic 80-year-old ZinStar Vineyard receives loving treatment year-round. Its headpruned vines ripen fully at low sugar levels, resulting in wines that are food friendly, complex, and moderate in alcohol. Season after season, this very special, 3.5-acre vineyard is carefully tended to by hand. During ripening, the technique of veraison thinning is practiced to remove slower ripening clusters, to achieve a uniformity of ripeness. David and Heather consider this vineyard activity to be more important than anything else they do in the winery. At harvest, the winegrapes are selected and picked by hand, and then individually sorted so only perfect, uniformly ripe clusters are chosen to make the wine. Through these and other meticulous practices, the elegant personality of ZinStar Vineyard is retained. Traditional practices continue in the winery where each vintage rests “single high” in French Oak barrels for 10 to 16 months without movement and racking. The Chardonnay is made in the traditional battonage method, which involves stirring the yeast lees in each barrel to increase contact with the fermenting juice. The result is a portfolio of endurance, exhibiting a true star quality.
A visit to The Lucas Winery is always an adventure. Something exciting is always happening in the vineyard or Grand Chai, and guests are often invited to roll up their sleeves and help punch down grapes or prune a vine. The Grand Chai is unique in the world of Zinfandel. For guests who really want to talk wine, more private and intimate touring and tasting experiences can be arranged in advance with a call to the winery.