Chad Joseph, winemaker for hire

Lodi's busiest consulting winemaker started off big,
and ended up small

by Randy Caparoso

"You know what it's like working with a million gallon tank?" asks Chad Joseph, talking about his first job as a winemaker, at E. & J. Gallo in Modesto. "You can't even throw a football across it."

E. & J. Gallo doesn't just employ one winemaker, of course, they employ armies of winemakers. In the late nineties Mr. Joseph worked his way up the ranks of teams responsible for brands like Carlo Rossi, Livingston Cellars, Turning Leaf, and Gallo Sonoma, gaining valuable experience in the process.

After leaving the Gallo fold and moving to Lodi in 2001, Joseph's winemaking career immediately veered off onto a new path-from monitoring gigantic stainless steel tanks controlled by intricate computers, to hand-punching wines in 120-gallon plastic macrobin fermenters with no temperature controls or machinations in sight. Why? "I could finally make wine," says Joseph.

His first Lodi venture was a micro-sized (now defunct) winery called Joseph Narcizo Wines. It was a promising time, at the turn of the millennium, when many of the boutique Lodi wineries known and loved today were either in infancy or incubation, and Joseph leveraged his Gallo experience to become a busy consulting winemaker.

"I started picking up consulting jobs almost immediately after coming to Lodi," says Joseph, "because a lot of guys needed help tweaking-things like fixing stuck fermentations, or adjusting total acidity or residual sugar before bottling. I've done work for as many as twenty wineries over the past nine years."

Joseph Narcizo Wines closed five years ago, but today Joseph keeps busy with no less than seven permanent clients, most of them since inception: Harney Lane, Harmony Wynelands, Boitano, Valhalla, McConnell Estates, McCormack-Williamson, and Dancing Coyote. While wineries seek his technical expertise, they are not necessarily looking to produce "Chad Joseph" style wines. "I have to listen to what each client wants," says Joseph, "and make it come about. It's a process that involves coming up with strategic plans, and getting them to where they want to go."

But is there a "Chad Joseph" style of wine? "My Gallo experience taught me when to jump in and intervene with wines, not letting bad things happen. But as a winemaker in Lodi, I've had to take on the mindset of simply making the best possible wine, not the ‘cleanest' one, and letting wines naturally become what they want to be, not what I want them to be, giving them a chance to express the terroir (each wine's ‘sense of place')."

"As a result I've learned to take more risks-wild fermentations, warmer or sluggish fermentations, minimizing filtering and fining-the opposite of what we did at Gallo. To make artistic wines, you can't be afraid of mistakes. You have to have faith and let things ride."

Try two of Joseph's more unusual wines, illustrating his contributions to the growing prestige of Lodi produced wines:

• 2006 Harmony Wynelands, Mohr-Fry Ranch Lodi Alicante Bouschet ($30)- This exotic red wine smacks of earthy, jammy, wild berry aromas, suggesting blueberry and elderberry, with undertones of black leather. The feel is thick, layered, full and visceral, yet just soft enough to push the jammy fruit through a dense tannin texturing.

• 2008 Harney Lane, Lodi Tempranillo ($24) Joseph has become adept working with cutting-edge Iberian grapes that have begun to distinguish Lodi from other California wine regions. The aromas here are bright and strawberry fresh, with sprigs of mint, chocolate sprinkles, and a smoky oak elegance. On the palate, it offers up round yet firmly centered sensations, the moderate oak and tannin giving a toothsome, tobacco-like feel to the red fruit qualities.

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