This article was published by the Modesto Bee on Sunday, December 31, 2000.

A FINE TIME FOR WINE
San Joaquin County winery returns to its roots,
sets its sights on the big picture

By Tim Moran
Bee staff writer

Lockeford - The Olde Lockeford winery complex a half-mile west of Highway 88 on Locke Road has come full circle in the 54 years since it was built.

It started out as a cooperative in the eastern San Joaquin County community in 1946, when area growers had trouble finding homes for their grapes. Tokay wine, port, sherry, brandy and even champagne were produced there during its 32 years of operation.

It later became a gasohol plant, when gasoline shortages made that technology look promising.

That venture collapsed, and the site became an abandoned eyesore used by transients and teen-agers for beer parties.
Now it's a winery again, thanks to the efforts of Don and Karyn Litchfield.

Not just a winery, though. The Litchfields have dubbed the complex "Vino Piazza," and they envision a sort of winery incubator where small-to medium-sized boutique wineries can be launched in an Italian village-style setting.

The site, with 70,000 square feet of buildings, could house up to a dozen wineries, Don Litchfield said, with tasting rooms, a deli and a courtyard for visitors to use.

Each winery would have its own production space, with common facilities for crushing and destemming grapes. Barrel and case storage also is planned, and a portable bottling line could be brought in as well, he said.

The vision is ambitious, but the Litchfields are well on their way. Vino Piazza houses four wineries that crushed grapes there this fall, and more are on the way.

The most prominent of the current tenants is Mitch Cosentino, whose Napa winery has garnered accolades from wine critics. Cosentino is building two of his own wineries in the area, but in the meantime using the Vino Piazza space to make his Lodi-area wines.

The others are the Peters Family Winery, CasCande Pitto Wines and the Olde Lockeford Winery. Peters and Olde Lockeford each made about 1,000 cases of wine this year, while CasCande Pitto did about 2,000 cases.

Cosentino, who produced about 25,200 cases at Vino Piazza this year, lent his expertise, winery bond and crushing equipment to the smaller wineries.

Watts Winery, and Borra Vineyards are expected to come on board for the 2001 crush, and several more are interested, according to the Litchfields. Eventually, the facility could house a dozen small wineries, Don Litchfield said.

Joining in

Olde Lockeford Winery is the Litchfields' own venture. They hadn't expected to get into winemaking themselves this soon, Don Litchfield said. But a neighboring vineyard had 4 tons of extra grapes looking for a home and, well why not?

That sort of accidental timing is how the whole Vino Piazza project was launched.

The abandoned and heavily vandalized old winery was in foreclosure almost three years ago, with $1.8 million in taxes owed by a previous owner.

The Litchfields and a partner bought the 50-acre property for $215,000 at the foreclosure sale, figuring they could do something with it. The partner took the back 25 acres and the Litchfields kept the front parcel, which includes the winery buildings.

There were environmental issues with the site, including old gasoline tanks. Environmental cleanup is one of Don Litchfield's businesses, so that didn't seem to be a major stumbling block.

But what to do with the old site? The Litchfields considered using it for storage space and sought tenants through advertising, but didn't get much response, Karyn Litchfield said.

Don Litchfield figured the worst case would be using the site as an office for his businesses, which include environmental cleanup, construction, levee rebuilding and heavy equipment rental.

Then the idea of returning the old winery to its original use hit. "We figured it was tossup, a winery or an auto body plaza," Karyn Litchfield said with a grin.

The timing was perfect. The wine industry has lots of extra grapes and not enough storage. The Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission is encouraging area growers to consider making wine to boost tourism, and North Coast wineries are discovering the Lodi region as the next wine boom area.

The Litchfields pitched in to cleanup the site, working evenings and weekends.

The old winery had storage for 1 million gallons of wine, much of it in huge concrete tanks. Those tanks are being converted into mini-tasting rooms and winemaking areas.

The foundation of another huge tank in front of the complex will be turned into a fountain. The scale house where grapes are weighed has already been converted into a comfortable office for Vino Piazza and Litchfield's other businesses.

The four-story distillery building eventually will have an Italian village-style bell tower, Don Litchfield said. He bubbles with ideas for each of the four floors: a wine lab on one floor administrative space on another, maybe a banquet room or wine tasting room on the top.

Making progress

For now, Vino Piazza remains a work in progress, with bulldozers, backhoes, and crews working on grading, plumbing and electrical improvements.

But the Litchfields expect to have it ready for the public by next spring or summer, with wine tasting available.

They already have staged a few public events there, including a "haunted winery" tour for Halloween and a wine-tasting event in conjunction with the Lockeford-Clements Chamber of Commerce.

Both events drew far more people than the Litchfields expected. The haunted winery brought 2,000 people in three days, and the chamber wine-tasting another 500 to 600.

"We know they will come," Karyn Litchfield said. "We are getting a lot of inquiries on when we will be open."

The project hasn't been cheap. The Litchfields estimate it will have cost $1.5 million when complete, not including the sweat equity the put in.

At first they were chipping away at the work when they could afford to, but now they have bank financing to move the project forward more quickly.

The Litchfields aren't the only ones excited about Vino Piazza. " I think it's a great project," Cosentino said. "For us it's a near-term answer, but for most it's a longer-term solution. It allows a mom-and-pop operation to exist and survive."

Vino Piazza allows an exchange of equipment and ideas that can really help a start-up winery, Cosentino said.

"It's fantastic," added Mark Chandler, executive director of the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission. "It's going to help us reach critical mass much sooner."

The critical mass Chandler is talking about is the number of wineries and tasting rooms to make the region a major wine-tourism destination.

Vino Piazza makes it much easier for growers to make some wine and open a tasting room, Chandler said. "It allows a producer to get involved without the huge cost of bricks and mortar. It presents an opportunity. Someone with tanks, barrels, and a good winemaker can test the waters."

The location near Highways 12 and 88 is good to capture vacationers headed to the Sierra, Chandler said, and the Litchfields have added mineral and fossil dinosaur heads as an added attraction.

"The guy has great vision," Chandler said of Don Litchfield.
"This place was just here at the right time," Litchfield said.

Bee staff writer Tim Moran can be reached at 578-2349 or at tmoran@modbee.com.

This article was re-printed with the permission of the Modesto Bee.

Check them out at www.modbee.com.

Back to Articles