About Us - Mokelumne Oaks Vintners

From the serenity of California’s great central valley oaks arises the expression of fine wine produced in world-class quality microclimates. Only California can produce so many different expressions of flavor and resonance from each variety, and capture the heritage and flavors of oak to provide a premier wine you can share with family and friends. Our red wines have been selected from a few of these vineyards that produce their own distinctive bouquet and flavor, giving a unique experience to each and everyone who savors fine wine.

Two of our red wines, carignane and cab sauvignon, have been recognized as some of the best red wines at the 2007 California State Fair, both winning awards.  Ordering California wine can be done on our website so that you can buy California wine online or by mail.  We are a California winery direct sales company that will sell California wine online or by mail as well as at our Tasting Room.

Read a partial interview by the Central Valley Business Times and our vintner Manual Tavares, below.  The interview can be heard in its entirety at the audio link below.

Our Mission is to Create a $60 bottle of wine and sell it for $15.00. We believe that Wine should be a conversation piece. We like to create a wine that intrigues your pallet—causing one to linger trying to identify each nuance of the wine.The end product is a complex wine that has a smooth finish.

Our Wine Maker, Manual Tavares, was born in San Miguel in the Azure Islands the son of Portuguese parents who moved to the United States in December of 1963.  Manuel’s father always made wine and Manuel began helping at the age of 10. 

Tavares grows the grapes, barrels and blends the wine, and sells it. He’s been in the vineyard his entire adult life, growing grenache, carignane and mission grapes since the 1970s. And he has been dabbling in winemaking in the Portuguese tradition for years with his father as his teacher.
When the wine market became bloated in 2001, Tavares could not find a home for his grapes. Neither could other growers — and they banded together to form Mokelumne Oaks. Fortunately, the 2001 crop in the Lodi area was light, allowing the grapes to have more intense flavors. That’s just what Tavares wanted. “I intentionally left the grapes longer on the vines to increase (the sugars),” he said. “There is a boldness in the taste.”
There also is a balance of oak flavors, which Tavares created by aging his red wines in a combination of one-year-old and two-year-old American and French barrels. 

Interview by the Central Valley Business Times with Manual Tavares.

LOCKEFORD
May 17, 2007 12:01am

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•  Manuel Tavares creates boutique winery
•  ‘I love the whole aspect of it’

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Manual Tavares

Six years ago there was a glut of wine grapes on the market and Manuel Tavares was having a hard time selling the grapes his vineyard was producing.

But in a version of the old adage that when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade, Mr. Tavares turned his problem into a new small business, Mokelumne Oaks Vintners, a boutique winery housed at the Vino Piazza winery complex in Lockeford in the Central Valley.

Now selling close to 3,000 cases of wine a year, Mr. Tavares says the company is still so small he has to keep his day job as a field rep for a packing shed, but he hopes within the next couple of years to have grown the winery to the point where it supports him, his partners and a small staff.

(Mr. Tavares tells his story, including the challenges of starting a small winery in the Central Valley, in today’s CVBT Audio Interview. Please click on the link below to listen or to download the audio file to your iPod or PC.)

Mr. Tavares began his winemaking as a hobby. He says he was encouraged by friends to move the hobby into a small business.

One of the hardest challenges has been raising the capital to build the business, he says.

Another has been marketing. Mr. Tavares had found he not only has to be the grape grower, the winemaster and the winery manager, he also has had to knock on doors to get restaurants and retailers to try and then buy his wines.

"I’ve never been one to quit,” Mr. Tavares says. “I love the whole aspect of it.”

 Drilldown 
Mr. Tavares tells his story, including the challenges of starting a small winery in the Central Valley, in today’s CVBT Audio Interview.
Click here to listen or download (mokelumne oaks.mp3, 11.72 MB)