For our final tasting on Wednesday, we decided on the Cellar Door…

The Cellar Door by Michael David Winery is right in the middle of downtown Lodi. One of the first Lodi red wines that we tried several years ago was Michael David’s Earthquake Zin. Fell in love with it. We thought about joining Michael David several times over the years, but always hesitated because of how busy their tasting room out was. When they opened up an additional tasting room at the Cellar Door, we joined immediately. The only negative is that you can’t do your wine pick-up at the downtown location–you have to go out to their main tasting room on Highway 12 for pick-ups, but if you go on a weekday, it is relatively quiet. More about the Michael David main tasting room in a future blog.

The tasting room is large, with a long bar. A gorgeous mirror hangs on a brick wall behind the bar. There are tables and couches around the room–perfect places to sip on a glass of wine and enjoy the afternoon. They move the tables out of the way on the Friday nights they have live music, which always draws a good size crowd.

The people that work at the Cellar Door are amazing. They are so friendly, and you always feel welcome there. We especially enjoy Ashley, Jessica, Ro, and Erika. It may be because these are the people we see most often, but I think it is because they just very special ladies.

We saw Jessica and Erika when we were there on Wednesday. There was a pretty good group of people for a Wednesday–some new visitors and some that we knew. We almost always run into someone we know when we visit. This says something about the experience at the Cellar Door–people keep coming back over and over.

The Cellar Door serves Michael David wines as well as Van Ruiten wines. This provides a wide selection of wines as the wineries produce very different wines. The Michael David tastings included 2 whites and 6 reds; the Van Ruiten tastings included 2 whites, 1 rose’, and 3 reds. The tasting fee is $10 for 5 tastings. You can choose from the 14 different wines.

Bobby enjoyed a glass of the Earthquake Zin, while I sipped on a glass of the Van Ruiten Sparkling Rose’ .

A special shout-out to Jessica who celebrated a birthday a few days ago.

Details:

• Downtown Lodi
• 21 N. School Street
• www.lodicellardoor.com
• Open Wednesday from 12 – 5pm
• Open Thursday & Saturday from 12 – 7pm
• Open Friday from 3pm – 10pm
• Open Sunday from 12 – 5pm