Today, Van Ruiten and his two sons, Jim and John, farm over eight hundred acres of wine grapes, many of which are contracted to Fetzer, Ravenswood, Delicato and Pacific Wine Partners.

Growing high quality grapes shaped the families success as growers and forged the direction towards bringing John’s dream to fruition of creating their own handcrafted family wines.

In 1999 the family introduced their first handspun family wines with the release of the Cab-Shiraz and Chardonnay. It is now the occupation of three generations of Van Ruiten’s working together to manage and run the business of the winery. Their commitment is to craft wines of superb quality, which consistently over-deliver at their respective price points.

It is no secret that hard work and determination will garner rewards. However, family leadership displays conviction when it comes to quality, the Van Ruiten’s have demonstrated this in their unique hand processing, and the fruit that is chosen to eventually bare the family name. All of the grapes processed at the Van Ruiten winery are hand picked and sorted twice, so that the wine is not exposed to leaves or other foreign objects. Sacrificing volume in the interest of quality raises the bar and insures the wines distinctive characteristics.

In this last year the Van Ruiten family welcomed Mark Fedorchak, as the winery’s President and Ryan K Leeman as their new winemaker.

Mark began his career in the wine business as a wine grower managing several vineyards in the Lodi area. After years spent producing top-quality varietal grapes, he seized the opportunity to enter into the sales and marketing field. His first challenge came at the fledgling California Cooler Company of Stockton where they were just beginning to establish distribution outside of the local market. Mark went on to lead the sales team as National Sales Manager responsible for sales of over twelve million cases. This was just the beginning of many great accomplishments. Mark has an extensive history of success with the likes of the Fetzer Vineyards of Mendocino County, then the Brown-Foreman Corporation where he co-created their new Bonterra brand of organically grown wines. Later, he joined the Round Hill Family of Wines in the Napa Valley managing the Round Hill, Rutherford Ranch and Van Asperen brands. During his last two years at Round Hill he joined with the new owners in creating an entirely new ultra premium product line from their Monterey County Vineyards – Arroyo del Sol. This reads like a resume but one can’t help but be impressed by his accomplishments. Mark is an important piece of the collaboration to make Van Ruiten a world class winery.

Another important part of this collaboration is the addition of the Winemaker, Ryan K Leeman. Ryan began his career in his family’s business of cheese processing in Ohio. He became so interested in the science of fermentation that he enrolled at Cornell University, graduating in 1995. After leaving Cornell, Ryan joined Paumanok Vineyards on Long Island, New York. He was successful in creating a number of those regions most highly acclaimed wines. Next, he joined the Pellegrini and Schneider Vineyards of Long Island and later spent time at the Silver Lake Winery in Washington State, gaining more experience within one of the nations prized growing regions. This fall Ryan was given the task of overseeing the 2003 harvest and has positioned himself to bring forth their newest top-quality releases. In Ryan’s own words, “The Van Ruiten Family posses all of the elements to make us one of Lodi’s most recognized producers – top quality estate vineyards, a state-of-the-art facility and an experienced team to realize this goal.”

With all these elements stacking up in their favor I believe that we can anticipate some grand wines emerging from this family winery.

Van Ruiten is currently offering eight wines for tasting in their beautiful well appointed tasting room..

The Lodi Appellation is coming of age and world class winemakers within, are producing world class wines. So, it’s not any wonder that Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, discovers that sometimes, you don’t have to look any farther than your own back yard to find your hearts desire!

Van Ruiten is located at 340 West Highway 12 in Lodi, California. (209) 334-5722. vrtwinery.com Tasting Room hours are weekdays Tuesday thru Sunday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Weekends 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.