Downtown Lodi winery celebrates 10 years
Estate Crush offers a place for wine lovers to bottle own creations
Estate Crush soon will be immersed in its 10th harvest.
Over the next several weeks, tons of wine grapes from the Lodi appellation and elsewhere will arrive at the winery in Downtown Lodi. Husband-wife managing partners Ali and Bob Colarossi and their team will craft those grapes into wine for close to 100 clients who utilize their custom crush to bottle services.
In short, the Colarossis help fulfill the wishes of wine lovers anywhere who want to make their own brand but don’t have the means or desire to open a winery.
“We get calls from all over the place,” Bob Colarossi said. “We got an email from a dentist in North Carolina who wants to make wine.”
Estate Crush can handle as much of the winemaking process as the client desires. The Colarossis can take a client’s grapes or find a source, vinify, age, bottle, package and even sell the wine in the tasting room.
“People could create their own brand whether they have grapes or not working with us, and we hold their hand,” Bob said. “We provide the winemaking expertise, the compliance, the packaging. We make it super easy. It’s one-stop shopping. No heavy lifting.”
Estate Crush makes on average 125 to 150 different wines per year, and of those, 91 are available for purchase in the tasting room adjacent to the winery at the corner of Lockeford and Sacramento streets. The tasting room has a sleek, modern design and is a fun place to try a variety of brands. Visitors can sample a flight of five wines out of 16 on a tasting menu that changes monthly.
“It’s really easy for people to find something they like,” Ali said.
Now, fans of bubbles can enjoy Estate Crush’s first sparkling wines, available on this month’s tasting menu and for purchase. The 2017 Estate Crush Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc ($26) is crisp and has clean aromas, nice acidity with green apple and citrus flavors. The 2017 Estate Crush Sparkling Rosé of Cinsaut ($26) has juicy watermelon and strawberry on the nose and the palate. The Sauvignon blanc was grown by the Ledbetter family (Vino Farms), and the Cinsaut was sourced from the iconic Bechthold vineyard planted by Joseph Spenker in 1886 and managed by Kevin Phillips of Phillips Family Farms. Both wines attained their fizz through a forced carbonation process that creates long-lasting bubbles.
“We’ve always had a pretty robust menu of whites, rosès, light-, medium- and full-bodied reds,” Bob said. “And we thought this was just a perfect accompaniment to our past and present offerings.”
Estate Crush also makes a still red and a still rosè from the four to six rows of Cinsaut it has in the 25-acre Bechthold vineyard, which is believed to be the oldest producing planting of the French varietal in the world. The aromas and flavors are similar to Pinot noir.
"That vineyard has a really special place in history,” Ali said. “And it’s fun to be able to share that with other people and to showcase it.”
Bob Colarossi grew up in an Italian family in Boston, where home winemaking with his dad and uncles was a rite of passage. Bob embarked on a career in sports management and was president and chief executive of USA gymnastics. In 2005, Bob took a job with AEG in Southern California and was the original managing director of the Amgen Tour of California, the second-largest cycling event in the world behind the Tour de France. At the time, Ali was senior vice president for Fleishman-Hillard, the world’s largest public relations firm, and her team won Amgen as a client to activate its new race sponsorship. Bob and Ali met through Amgen’s title sponsorship of the Tour of California.
The couple married nine years ago and bought a home in Lodi on 10 acres of old vine zinfandel. They saw an opportunity for custom crush services and opened Estate Crush in 2009. Two years later, they opened their tasting room. They recently added bottling and kegging lines.
“When we started 10 years ago, there were very few custom crush facilities in California and there were almost none that we’re doing a full commercial production,” Bob said. “So, we kind of pioneered that space and continue to.”
Bob and Ali have helped Lodi host beginning and finishing stages of the Amgen Tour of California, and they secured Lodi Wine as the tour’s official wine sponsor this year. Ali consults for Amgen and AEG and continues working with the Breakaway from Cancer initiative, born out of Amgen’s sponsorship of the Tour of California to increase awareness of resources available to people impacted by cancer.
When not at the winery, Bob and Ali enjoy cycling and being outdoors with their family.
“Lodi is so natural, so downto-earth and so real,” Bob said. “You know the people you’re talking to. It’s a great place to raise kids.”