Founders Liz and Markus Bokisch in the barrel room at Bokisch Vineyards.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
A lineup of wines made by Bockisch Vineyards in Lodi, which specializes in Spanish wines.
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The tasting room at Bockisch Vineyards in Lodi, where Albariño is the top seller.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
The estate vineyard at Bokisch, where founder Markus Bokisch planted cuttings from Spanish vines he imported illegally nearly 30 years ago.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
In February of 1999, Markus Bokisch was summoned to the Port of Oakland. Behind door 11, four 3-by-5-foot, white cardboard boxes labeled “barbecue utensils” were lined up along a wall.
Vine canes Bokisch had shipped from Spain — illegally — were protruding from a giant hole in one of the boxes. He realized he might be in trouble. “Mr. Bokisch,” said a stern-looking woman behind a metal desk. “Barbecue utensils?”
“Yes,” Bokisch replied. To his relief, she sent him on his way.
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“I loaded them in the back of my pick-up truck and was looking in my rearview mirror all the way through the Caldecott Tunnel,” Bokisch recalled. He drove the boxes two hours northeast to his ranch in Lodi (San Joaquin County), where he planted the vines for his winery, Bokisch Vineyards.
California’s winemaking history dates back to the Spanish missionaries, who planted the Mission grape across the state in the 1700s to make wine, primarily for religious purposes. By the mid-19th century, French grapes began to take over, and while California’s Mediterranean climate is suitable for many Spanish grapes, Spain’s influence on California wine came to a standstill. Some 150 years later, when Bokisch set out to start his winery, he couldn’t find high-quality plant material for Spanish grapes in America. The limited options were “workhorse clones,” selected for large production, not “unique and interesting wines,’” he said. So he went to the source.
Bokisch Vineyards claims to have the oldest planting of Albariño in California, and the oldest planting of Graciano in the New World.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
“In Catalunya, when people start pruning (the vines) in the fall, they keep a percentage of the cuttings, let them dry on the side of their barn and then use them to flash cook meat,” Bokisch said. “I wasn’t lying. That’s how you barbecue there.”
This half-truth went on to help reignite a Spanish wine movement in California. Bokisch — who spent his childhood summers in Spain with his Spanish relatives and wanted to honor his heritage — wasn’t the first to plant Spanish vines in California’s modern winemaking history. But his budwood, which he donated to UC Davis’ Foundation Plant Services, gave domestic winemakers unprecedented access to high-quality clones of Spanish varieties. Today, there are hundreds of acres of Spanish grapes like Tempranillo and Albariño in California, largely propagated from Bokisch’s imported vines. These grapes have infiltrated burgeoning regions like Lodi and the Central Coast, where the climate and soils closely match those in Spain, and the winemaking culture is more open to niche varieties than in regions like Napa and Sonoma.
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While French wines continue to dominate California wine, this bet on Spanish wines — known to be bolder, higher in alcohol and less nuanced than French wines — is poised to pay off. Younger generations are drawn to lesser-known varieties, and demand for Rioja, the Tempranillo-based Spanish red wine, is on the rise in the U.S., where imports jumped 17% in 2024.
From renegade to pioneer
In the early ’90s, Bokisch and his wife, Liz, lived in Catalonia’s Penedès region, the center of production for Cava, Spain’s sparkling wine. While working for a vineyard company, Bokisch, who had studied plant science and worked at Napa’s Joseph Phelps, was tasked with collecting cuttings of grape varieties throughout Spain to see how they grew in Penedès. He planted them all in one experimental block before returning to the U.S.
Then in 1997, two years after he and Liz purchased their ranch in eastern Lodi, Bokisch returned to the block. He compiled roughly 1,000 cuttings of four grape varieties and shipped them to the U.S. He brought in Spain’s most-planted red grape, Tempranillo, along with the seafood-friendly Albariño; the esoteric Graciano; and the bold and fruity Garnacha (Grenache).
Most producers in Lodi focused on Zinfandel, and very few California wineries were making Spanish wines. That meant Bokisch Vineyards was an anomaly when it launched in 2000. Before 2007, for instance, there were fewer than 50 acres of Albariño in California. “In the early days, people would be like, ‘Is it from Spain? Where am I going to put it on the wine list?’ It was very hard to sell,” Bokisch said of Albariño.
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Today, there are nearly 700 acres of Albariño in California, according to the USDA’s California Grape Acreage Report, and this growth can be largely credited to Bokisch, who believes his planting is the oldest in the state. After his run-in at the port, Bokisch donated his Spanish cuttings to UC Davis’ Foundation Plant Services, which he said was “a vast improvement to what they had” in their Spanish collection. Now, his clonal selections for Tempranillo and Albariño are the most widely distributed in the U.S.
Bokisch Vineyards founder Markus Bokisch inspects a glass of 2024 Albariño Family Estate in the tasting room.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
The director of Foundation Plant Services initially “reprimanded” Bokisch for importing the vines illegally. The USDA prohibits imports of many agricultural products, including grapevines, as they may carry foreign pests and diseases that could, in turn, damage U.S. crops and livestock. (Bokisch said he tested his vines for disease before shipping them from Spain.) “They said, ‘You really shouldn’t be doing this,” he recalled, “and I said, ‘Give me a reason not to.’” That interaction, Bokisch claimed, compelled the university to grow its Spanish collection, which, like its French collection, has “become really robust.”
The winery’s Spanish wine offerings have grown to include lesser-known varietals like Verdejo, Macabeo and Monastrell (Mourvedre), but Albariño is its best seller. Bokisch makes three bottlings of it, including a rare sparkling, and the grape has become one of Lodi’s most popular whites. More than one-third of California Albariño is grown in Lodi, the most in any region.
Bokisch believes California’s footprint for Spanish grapes will continue to grow, despite the worsening wine downturn and grape oversupply. Spanish grapes thrive in a warm climate, which could make some a better choice than more popular varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon, as the globe continues to heat up. In 2021, Bordeaux approved the use of Albariño, along with five other varieties, in its wines, due to their potential to better withstand climate change. The grape can “hold onto acid better than Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon,” Bokisch said, referring to Bordeaux’s signature white grapes.
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Moreover, white wines are trending, and Bokisch views the light, crisp Albariño as “a really good gateway wine.” Verdejo, he added, is more textured and some producers, including Bokisch, have made it in the skin contact style that’s popular among Millennials and Generation Z.
Bokisch is also bullish on Grenache and has increased his production in the past several years — though Grenache acreage in California has dropped by over 1,000 acres in the past decade, according to the California Grape Acreage Report. “I think that’s a sleeper,” he said. “It’s such a quaffable, easy-drinking red wine. I really see that taking off.”
Another brazen move
This past summer, nearly 30 years after his trip to the Port of Oakland, Bokisch found himself in a bit of trouble once again. He received a cease and desist from the DO of Cava, the quality control system established to ensure that Cavas meet specific geographic, production and quality standards. Like Champagne, Cava cannot be used to label or market wines produced outside of the region.
The DO was “tipped off” that Bokisch had used the protected Cava designation in some marketing materials for its Cava-inspired sparkling wine named Lo Xalet, which translates to the chalet. Bokisch was flattered. “It’s great that the DO even recognized we exist,” he said. “With our price point and quantities, we’re not even in the realm of competition with them.”
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The outdoor tasting area at Bockisch Vineyards in Lodi, which pioneered a Spanish wine movement in California.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
The winery made fewer than 170 cases of its first Cava release and sells it for $60, much higher than the typical bottle of Cava, which is usually under $25 and considered an affordable alternative to Champagne. Both Champagne and Cava are made using the traditional method process, which includes a second fermentation in the bottle. But Cava, which doesn’t have the same renown as Champagne to command luxury prices, has lower labor costs and more consistent harvests.
Bokisch’s latest act of rebellion marks another breakthrough for Spanish wines in California. Whereas most California sparklings adopt Champagne’s traditions, Bokisch is the first to produce an American sparkling wine that closely replicates a Cava, which typically trades Champagne’s complexity for crispness. It took him years to source and plant the traditional grape varieties used in Cava: Xarel·lo, Macabeo and Parellada. He then used Spanish yeasts for fermentation and aged the wine to the DO’s specifications: nine months in tank and another nine in the bottle. The wine was even riddled — the painstaking process of rotating the bottles in small increments to push the sediment to the bottleneck to be removed later — by hand.
Bokisch still can’t call the wine Cava, but he’s holding out hope that might change for future releases. “We are negotiating with (the DO) to use Cava-style or Cava-light,” he said. “They’re pretty hard-headed.”
Dining and Cooking