About Bokisch Vineyards
Bokisch Vineyards is the reason Lodi speaks Spanish. Markus and Liz Bokisch met at UC Davis, and in 1992 the newlyweds moved to Catalonia in a 1967 Volkswagen bus, where Markus worked in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia, the town at the center of Cava production, and Liz taught English. Markus had spent his childhood summers with his Catalan family in La Rapita. They came home determined to grow Spanish grapes in California.
In 1995 they bought a hillside property in the Clements Hills of Lodi and named it Terra Alta, after the Catalan wine region nearest the Barcelona summers of Markus's childhood. In 1998 they imported budwood from selected Spanish vineyards and planted Las Cerezas Vineyard closer to town, one acre each of Albarino, Tempranillo and Graciano. The first wines from that estate-grown, organically farmed fruit followed in 2000.
The Lodi Winegrape Commission gives the Bokisches full credit for pioneering Albarino in the appellation, a grape almost nobody in California had planted when they put in their first acre. Markus had earlier worked as a viticulturist at Joseph Phelps in Napa, and the family also runs a vineyard management business, which is why Bokisch fruit turns up on other Lodi labels.
The estate list has kept widening: Tempranillo, Graciano, Garnacha Blanca, Monastrell, a Rosado, sparkling wines, and Catalan varieties including Xarel-lo, Macabeo and Parellada. The winery sits on Atkins Road at the Terra Alta property, and the VW bus that carried them to Spain is still there.
August 2026: Edible Monterey Bay profiled Liz and Markus Bokisch's Spanish-variety sanctuary in Clements Hills - planted from imported Spanish budwood in 1998 (Albarino, Tempranillo, Graciano), for years California's leading Tempranillo producer, now also pouring son Stefan's M.A.S. label with its Xarel.lo focus and a traditional-method cava of Xarel.lo, Macabeo and Parellada. Wine club events and weddings gather under the giant blue oak by the vintage Shasta trailer.
