Klinker Brick Winery

You will never go wrong buying a Klinker Brick Zinfandel. They produce Zinfandels that are consistently one of the best!

Terrible, terrible experience with Klinker Brick Winery yesterday. Very chaotic scene behind their bar. Understaffed? Perhaps. Definitely not trained in customer service. Starts at the top. Here’s the story: I was accused by VP of Operations, Stephan, of not paying for designer aerators through a voicemail message left on my phone. He admittedly wasn’t there, and not only accused me of not paying, but indicated that I made a scene, and ended by yelling into the phone something like this «You did not pay for the aerators, Miss Heldt. Consider this a present from Klinker Brick. Merry Christmas.» Hmmm… I left my name and number with the young woman who wanted me to pay (again) saying that I would certainly pay if the items didn’t show up on my credit card — I wasn’t able to pull the information up on my phone to show «proof of payment.» I didn’t run out on the purchase and steal the aerators. I was with three other friends who witnessed the payment — one of whom I was splitting the purchase. I even made a second purchase (Brix chocolate). When I got home last night and was able to look at the recent transactions on my card, there were two purchases from Klinker Brick (one for the aerators $ 63.94), and one for the chocolate ($ 48.96 — yeah, I know — better be really, really good chocolate). I returned Stephan’s voicemail with my own angry and defensive voicemail. Ugh! This morning while going over receipts with my friend (who is a Club member and will be canceling her membership — not because of the chaos yesterday, but because of the poor customer service), we went over the steps that brought us to this uncomfortable situation. At first we picked out three aerators — and then asked for a fourth. My card was run, and I signed the iPad Square that was being passed between the staff and other customers. I now believe that while I thought I was paying for four, only three were rung up. So I’ll be calling Stephan — or maybe the President of Operations who might want to take a stab at customer service — to pay for the fourth aerator. I should have left everything there and canceled the purchase on my card — hindsight is ²⁰⁄₂₀. My friend suggested, that I should have left everything, and asked them to send it by overnight mail when I was able to prove my purchase. (Question: That’s what customer service requires these days at Klinker Brick? That I prove my purchase when the scene behind the counter was so chaotic and they didn’t give me my receipt in the first place?) Anyway, I want to pay for the fourth aerator, if that is what happened. A gift from Klinker Brick? Merry Christmas? No thank you! What I’m angry about is that I did not receive a receipt for the purchase (at all), I was asked to prove my purchase, they could not bring the purchase up on their end and no one realized (including me) that quite possibly there was a better solution to this misunderstanding. This is where Klinker Brick gets a big fat F for customer service. What if Stephan called and left the following message: «Ms. Heldt, my name is Stephan and I’m the VP of Operations at Klinker Brick. Would you please give me a call back so we can discuss the purchases you made today? Thank you.»

Klinker Brick Winery has all the components of a great Lodi winery. Their facility is located in the heart of the East Lodi wine country with a dirt parking lot and upscale rustic feel to the place. They have upgraded the tasting room over the years on Alpine Road while keeping the same feel.
I am not a big fan of the wine, but the overall experience is very good. There are usually lots of staff for quick pours and help buying bottles or any of the great arts and crafts. Klinker charges a tasting fee which is refunded with purchase, except for large groups. Their wines tend to be drier and more tannic than most, but their bottles are really cool.
I usually recommend Klinker Brick due to its great overall experience. Wine is always subjective, but tasting it in such a great environment is always a treat.

1^st time hear didn’t wanna leave it was a great experience for me since it was my fist time wine tasting thank you I’ll be back became a wine member

Wife and I decided to do a wine tasting trip to lodi. Made it to several wineries and this really stood out. Great zins, old ghost is a must. We bought three cases and will likely order more. Had a small issue with one bottle after we returned home. Contacted them and the remedied right away. Great people and awesome wines.

First time in Lodi and first time wine tasting out here!
My girlfriends and I were recommended to check this winery out. We finally checked it out and wow did we get more than what we bargained for. A total of 9 tastings with generous pours!
5 $ for the tasting few or it can be waved by buying a bottle, which we all did because it was so good!

I was disappointed with this stop. I was taking a friend who is from Boston around my hometown for wine tasting and this is one of the places on the short list I gave her that she wanted to stop. I’ve had their wine in the past and always liked it. The wine was good, nothing that knocked my socks off but good and consistent.
My issue was the service, the tasting bar was full when we got there so we had to wait for a few people to leave so we could squeeze it, not a big deal. But once we got to the bar none of the pourers really engaged us. They poured us our wine and that was it. No explanation of what we were drinking or anything. My husband and I go wine tasting regularly (at least once a month). We have our favorite but we also love stopping at new places (cause we love wine lol) and really enjoy getting to know the wines, the wineries and the people that work there. I left feeling like I knew as much as I did when I walked in.
I’m not in a rush to go back. I’ll still drink their wine but the tasting room experience was a let down.

Great wines. Great people. Stephanie and Tiffany are awesome.
This was our favorite stop in Lodi. The tasting was a great assortment and the zins were wonderful. And at $ 5… Wow! I’d also recommend purchasing a glass of your favorite wine and walking thru the shop or sitting outside and enjoying the relaxing patio.

Great wines at reasonable prices. If you like well balanced fruit forward wines this is the place for you. The staff are super friendly and knowledgeable about the wines they pour. We didn’t find a single wine that was less than great. We are wine club members and always buy a few extra bottles because they are that good. We highly recommend this winery– forget all your preconceptions about Lodi wines.

The ambience of this winery was the best! Their reds were excellent and I look forward to the return of their Old Ghost Zin, which they were unfortunately so low on as to be unable to offer tastings. They offered complimentary samplings of at least nine pretzel dips and had fun wine-​based art for purchase in their tasting room.

The wine is good, the flavors are very popular in Lodi and you can’t go wrong with nearly any wine here. The flavor profiles are fruit driven (forward) and may contain a little RS (residual sugars) on some of the bigger reds.
The tasting room is comfortable and the staff is friendly. The place is also dog friendly so I would think Fido would enjoy a weekend excursion to Lodi Wine Country.
Overall, a good experience and a fun place to launch a wine day. Klinker Brick is helping put the Lodi Wine Trail on the map, so to speak.

With an amazing, helpful staff, a wine newbie such as myself felt completely at ease and willing to try new things. Loved the white wine (obviously I am not a wine aficionado) and the wine tastings were generous with the portions. Such a great deal for $ 5 or waived if you buy a bottle. Loved it!

Because it had a lot of good reviews my husband and I thought we should definitely do some tasting here. The tasting room had a nice atmosphere and there were a lot of people tasting. The pourers didnt take any time to describe the wine to us as most tasting rooms do, we also did not care for the wines. They all had a bit too much bitterness to them. We were disapointed with the wine choices.

This Winery is our favorite in Lodi ! Nice n awesome place n good wine. we went yesterday there n had a lot fun with friends ! We recommend this winery if u go to Lodi must visit this exotic winery!

YUMMY! That is all I got to say about their wines. This is our first stop this past weekend and we left with several bottles of wine. The tasting room staff were very friendly and informative. The tasting room with well done and there is a really cute area outside to picnic. Also dog friendly!
A must on your wine tour of Lodi!

If you love Zins this is your happy place. They have a lovely open, spacious tasting room and sweet staff. Of course all that matters is the wine and I’ll take Klinker over any other winery any day.
Go for the old vine Zins, but don’t be afraid of the Rose. When I was growing up pink wine meant you were jug drinking white trash, but their Rose legit.
They always sell out of Old Ghost, so if it’s there when you are you two are meant to be together.
Bring your dog they’ll have a cookie for her/​him and if I’m there I’ll coo over her/​his canine gorgeousness.
Cheers.

We tried all the zins here, and they were all great. Had a wonderful time tasting. I’ve bought the wines from Klinker for years, at my neighborhood Safeway store, but it was even more fun to taste the Klinker wines in their tasting room.
It was very crowded in the room, and loud– but that’s because they have good wine. We stepped out on the patio, and savored our wines out there. It’s not the prettiest patio, but they’ve got such great wines, who cares?
The staff was rushed, but professional.

One of our expert wine pickers chose Klinker Brick to start off our tour of Lodi.
This long time winery has a recently freshened up look and was run by family members during our visit. Being from the Bay Area it always amazes me how nice and down home friendly folks are just outside the madness called Silicon Valley. The gals shared the winery’s history and why they named it after a brick.
I agree with others that the Zinfindels were the main attraction. That said, the fiery hot mustard is just killer. Most likely we will find a way to order more once the jar is empty and my mouth cools down.

This was my 2^nd time here in the last 2 years. Both times it was fairly crowded and the service was just okay. The first time I went, I didn’t buy any wine. The 2^nd time, I bought the Farriah Syrah 2011, which was the best of all their wines I tasted. It’s an average winery in the area, but not a big stand out in either wine or service.

Summary: Some great zins, very friendly staff (all family), and don’t assume they aren’t tasting just because the signs say closed (you have to check to see if they are actually open).
I went here for the first time with my wife and her parents on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. All signs indicated they were closed, but fortunately there was one other car in the parking lot with a nice couple coming out that informed us tastings were occurring, so we made our way inside. Soon we were tasting wines and talking with the family owners/​staff that have been in Lodi for generations. Very nice people with some fun stories!