Story of a California vineyard conjured almost purely from imagination
On the wines that defy reason, and most certainly convention, from Mokelumne Glen Vineyards
We do not know what the dragon means, just as we do not know the meaning of the universe, but there is something in the image of the dragon that is congenial to man’s imagination… It is, one might say, a necessary monster.
⏤Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings
Strange or mythical creatures, according to Borges, are extensions of our reality compelled by human imagination. Hence, Borges’ tidy little handbook, El libro de los seres imaginarios (1957), which is a bestiary of both long documented imaginary beings of myth, folklore and fiction augmented by complete and utter figments of the author’s own imagination.
Original wines, conceived on the basis of a vignerons’ own complete and utter imagination, do exist in this world. I would classify many of these products as wines that defy almost any semblance of reason⏤at least from the perspective of conventional thought processes. My old friend Greg La Follette, a scientist as much as a teller a tales of vineyards, has always described wines inhabiting unexpected realms of taste as “pushing the dragon’s tale.” This is what makes wine interesting.
As a matter of fact, earlier this month I spent the last six days of my sixteen-year residence in the Lodi appellation in one such a vineyard⏤perched in a rooftop room of a fairy tale-like home overlooking centuries-old oak trees along the winding, ice-cold Mokelumne River⏤as guests of the Koth family, undaunted keepers of these vinous quarries.
The fantastical tale
Let’s start from the beginning in the telling of this saga—really, a story of heroic proportions—about the Lodi vineyard known as Mokelumne Glen Vineyards.
It started when the grape bug took an extra-large bite out of Bob Koth, a Lodi educator and grape farmer. It was back in the early 1990s when he and his wife Mary Lou Koth visited Germany where their daughter Ann-Marie was studying on a Fulbright scholarship. After tasting a number of outstanding German wines, the Koths found a new obsession.
Soon after returning home to Lodi, the Koths removed the blocks of Flame Tokay and Zinfandel⏤for well over 100 years, the two most easily adapted grapes associated with Mokelumne River-Lodi’s quintessential Mediterranean climate⏤already cultivated on their property, tucked into an oxbow corner of the Mokelumne River, on the east side of the appellation of that same name. Within a few years, the old head trained (or “bush vine”) plantings were replaced by what grew to be no less than over 50 different cultivars of German as well as Austrian origin, trained on wires.
This was no small task. It wasn’t like they could put in their requests for any type of grape from nearby nurseries. It required digging, scratching and searching high and low to acquire cuttings. Cultivars were sourced from literally every nursery to be found, not just in the country but all around the world. As dogged, longtime academics, both Bob and Mary Lou were more than up to it.
Remember, though, this is Lodi, a “hot climate” region long thought to be the opposite of growing regions in Germany and Austria. Ah, but here is the rub: There are also fairly warm regions in Germany and Austria where many of these grapes are grown. Therefore, within a few years, at least a half-dozen of these Teutonic varieties—particularly Kerner, Riesling, Bacchus, Gewürztraminer, Dornfelder, Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch and Grüner Veltliner—seemed to flourish under the balmy sunlight and in the sandy soils of this sloping riverbend property.
Soon more than 50 varieties were cultivated in this corner of Lodi. Some more easily (Kerner and Dornfelder) than others (Riesling and Bacchus), yet productivity proved promising enough for the Koths to expand choice grapes into small blocks and seriously consider making wine out of them. From a conventional perspective, this was madness.
And so, audaciously, in the early 2000s the Koths began bottling and selling wines under their own label, Mokelumne Glen Vineyards, although as anyone would have predicted, it was an uphill battle. Whoever heard of selling Germanic wine in the middle of the land of Zinfandel? The very idea of producing white wines in a land of reds?
In 2010, when the family decided to execute a Bonaparte’s retreat and focus strictly on grape growing rather than winemaking, surprise, surprise: They found a good amount of independent wine companies standing in line to buy their unlikely grapes!
Credit goes to producers such as Sonoma’s David Ramey, Lodi’s Markus Niggli and others for being among the first vintners to shine a spotlight on these varieties, considered esoteric, even outlandish, not just in Lodi, but also anywhere on the West Coast. There have been just enough of these handcraft producers around to buy just about everything the vineyard grows over the past 15 years.
As it often happens with longtime couples, Bob and Mary Lou (married for 61 years) passed away within three months of each other, in 2020 and 2021. Today the family vineyard continues to be farmed by their children, Ann-Marie and Brett Koth.
The latest compelling releases
At the end of this past May, Ann-Marie and Brett put on their yearly tasting for friends and colleagues, showing off some of the more interesting of the latest wines sourced from Mokelumne Glen Vineyards. They always invite all their winemaker/clients to attend, but most of them usually can’t make it because their wineries are located in places as far-flung as Sonoma, Napa, Santa Barbara, L.A. and even Nevada City.
But the wines they manage to gather together, as always, remain fascinating for their diversity, compelling in their exoticism, and most important of all, impressive in terms of sheer, unadulterated quality by any standard in the world. These wines are important because, by and large, they fulfill the growing taste for wines that are lighter, driven more by acidity than simple fruitiness or alcohol-addled body, adding up to more puristic profiles.
It helps that, almost as a rule, the Koths’ winery clients tend to follow a contemporary style of winemaking most likely to achieve these sensory qualities. That is, hands-off, low intervention methodology: Everything from foot treading and whole cluster, natural fermentation to neutral wood aging and minimal filtration, picking early to preserve natural acidity and keep alcohol levels low. Many wine buffs describe this approach as “natural,” but that labeling has far less meaning than the actual results: Bottlings that vividly express the grapes from a specific place, in avoidance of conventional branding and industry standards.
Like a bestiary of both fictitious and actual creatures, wines that defy logic, yet capture the imagination… if, as an aficionado of unusual wines, you are so inclined.
My notes on some of the more interesting Mokelumne Glen grown wines tasted with the Koths just last month:
2024 Haarmeyer Wine Cellars, Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Victor Weisser, Gemischter Satz ($28)
First, this wine is called Victor Weisser—meaning, simply, “white wine from Victor” (the census-designated place closest to the vineyard)—precisely because, as a 52-grape field pick that is fermented all at once as one single lot, it does not represent any single grape variety or “varietal” type
On a sensory level, the wine is fantastical: Straw color with just a tinge of bronze-gold; ultra-spicy and fragrant in dianthus-lke floral (i.e., vanillin clove/pepper), tropical fruit, leafy and dried citrus skin potpourri, and drippy summer peach; silken fine, dry as a bone, airy light and notably crisp with natural acidity.
For you wine geeks, West Sacramento-based owner/winemaker Craig Haarmeyer remarks: “Everything you taste in this wine is natural to the grapes, and true to the place. It’s a lot of different grapes picked all at once, but to get the right chemistry, needing absolutely no corrections, I’ve been picking the field early, by mid-August, so most of the grapes come in balanced out between 19.6º and 20.0º Brix [i.e., sugar reading], so the wine finished at a low 12.5% ABV (alcohol by volume). Native yeast fermentation, of course, with no filtering or fining, aged strictly in neutral barriques with lees contact until bottling, and just a kiss of SO2.
“I’d say the predominant spice components showing in the wine at the moment is due to the influence of the spice varieties in the field; grapes such as Schönburger, Siegerrebe, Traminer, Gewürztraminer, and the various Riesling varieties in the vineyard. Remember, there is also a good percentage of red wine grapes [as much as 30%] such as Dornfelder, Zweigelt, Bläufrankisch and Spätburgunder [i.e., Pinot noir] in the block. Making a wine like this is like a chef preparing a dish with 1,000 ingredients.”
2025 Christopher Cellars, Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Bacchus ($38)
While small, this Elk Grove, Sacramento County winery (falling within the Lodi AVA) now produces over 20 varietal bottlings⏤their followers’ interest in unusual varieties such as Clairette blanche, Dolcetto, Nero d’Avola and black and white skinned German cultivars recently grown to insatiable proportions⏤pretty much following the native yeast, neutral wood (both barriques and puncheons), low intervention methodology of many handcraft contemporary producers.
Bacchus is a 1933 German crossing of Müller-Thurgau (Riesling x Madeleine Royale) and a crossing of Silvaner x Riesling, reaching a peak of popularity in the 1990s in relatively warmer German wine regions such as the Rheinhessen and Franconia.
As a dry white wine, there’s almost nothing like it: Past iterations of varietal Bacchus grown by the Koths have been notably high in acid (the grape is slow to ripen), with a leafy herbiness closer to what you find in Mediterranean grapes such as Vermentino, Marsanne and Clairette blanch than to the floral white wine varieties associated with Germany. The ’25 Christopher is a clear straw colored wine, floral/fragrant and spicy with scrubby wild, leafy herbs, tinging a quiet core of white peach/apricot-like fruit. On the palate, it is typically acid driven, more minerally than “fruity”⏤in that sense, more Mediterranean/European than Mediterranean/California in profile⏤with an elevated, glycerol influenced textural feel. As I said, nothing like it in the world.
2025 Christopher Cellars, Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Grüner Veltliner ($38)
Contrary to common belief, white wines grown in Lodi are not low in acidity. There are three factors contradicting this baseless assumption: 1) Lodi has diurnal temperature swings (cool night temperatures influenced by daily Delta breezes) similar to most of the California coast and even greater than anywhere in the Mediterranean Basin; 2) many grape varieties (particularly those of Mediterranean origin) are long adapted to warm climates, retaining ample acidity under the hottest conditions; and 3) contemporary viticultural and winemaking practices have leaned towards picking grapes when lower in sugar and higher in acidity.
Thus, the recent phenomenon, where Lodi grown Grüner Veltliners are finished with a sense of lightness and elevated acidity that are just as delicate and edgy as many Grüner Veltliners grown in their native Austria, if not more so. Not the same, of course, but no less prickly and lithe. The ’25 Christopher, as it were, is exuberant in lemon and lime skin fragrances; grapefruity crisp and lemony tart on the palate, finishing with as much minerality and citrus tartness as fruit in its profile.
2025 Christopher Cellars, Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Kerner ($38)
Pale straw white with fragrances leaning closer to the mineral/flinty side of this variety⏤a 1929 German crossing of Trollinger (a black skinned grape) and Riesling ⏤than to its typical lemon/citrus profile. It is the acidity and minerality of this bottling that renders a light, crisp and zippy feel, despite slightly phenolic content (i.e., a mild proportion of skin derived tannin) and fairly elevated alcohol (13.7% ABV). The very opposite of the “big,” fruit driven sensory qualities typifying garden variety California varietals such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.
2025 Markus Wine Co., Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Nativo ($25)
Most of the previous ten vintages of winemaker/owner Markus Niggli’s “Nativo” have been blends of Kerner, Bacchus and smaller portions of Riesling. The 2025 was a September 1 pick of 100% Kerner, coming in at 22.6º Brix; slowly fermented with native yeast in stainless steel at a low temperature (50º F.) to maximize the grape’s pure, unfettered mineral/acid profile. There are herbal/leafy suggestions mingling with citrus skin scents in the nose; on the palate, a slightly tropical, mountain apple-like fruit emerges, intertwined with natural acidity to give flint and lemongrass-like notes.
2025 Box Wine Co., Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Kerner ($25)
While, like the bottlings by Christopher and Markus, the Box Wine Co. Kerner is native yeast fermented, the difference is half of the wine was fermented in an open-top fermenter with grape skins intact, and the other half fermented from destemmed grapes in neutral barrels. The result is a dry white falling more into the apricot/peach-like spectrum of the varietal, underlined by a subtle briny/mineral character also typical of the grape. On the palate, the wine is citrusy fresh, crisp with acidity, slightly phenolic in its feel, yet lemony crisp, layered, and sharp as a knife on the palate.
“This style of Kerner,” says winemaker/owner Wesley Box, “has been described as a gateway drug to skin-contact whites”—referring to the recently fashionable (yet ancient) way of fermenting white wine grapes like red wines (with skins), which often results in slightly bitter phenolic content (i.e., tannin). There is, however, nothing bitter or rough about this wine. It positively sings; or rather, screams for plates of oysters, shrimp or ceviche.
2024 Haarmeyer Wine Cellars, Blau-Blau Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Blaufränkisch ($33)
Blaufränkisch (a.k.a., Lemberger) is a black skinned grape that originated in Germany but is of more significant commercial importance in Austria and Slovenia.
The ABV of the 2024 Blau-Blau is a scant 12.56%, an almost antiquated alcohol level, in a world where 14% is considered “light” by the standards of most of today’s commercial red wines. Is it any wonder Haarmeyer has become a brand de résistance among a small yet increasingly fanatical faction of aficionados with a yen for more authentic or distinctive styles of wine?
The ’24 Blau-Blau is a vivid purplish ruby; the nose, ultra-fragrant and intense, teeming with cassis or framboise-like concentrations of fruit; aged in neutral puncheon to emphasize the pure, brambly, savory, tart acid driven profile of the grape, and bottled early (in January/February 2025, even before the Haarmeyer whites) to emphasize the wine’s sense of place.
2024 Box Wine Co., Mokelumne Glen Vineyards Zweigelt ($33)
This black skinned Austrian grape⏤a crossing of St. Laurent and Blaufränkisch conceived in 1922⏤has proven to be one of Mokelumne Glen’s most successful varieties, producing red wines such as the ’24 Box bottling: Light in feel, very much acid driven, yet intense and pure in floral and dark fruit (black cherry/cranberry) fragrances, almost sweet toned in its exuberance of penetrating fruit, kept pure enough to skip gaily across the palate.
Sehr gut!
I’ve loved David Ramey’s Kerner in the past, so it’s great to read about the vineyard it comes from and the other varieties grown there. I know of Kerner Fromm Michigan (Left Foot Charley) — do you know of anyone else growing it?