About LangeTwins Family Winery
The Lange family arrived in Lodi around 1870, when German immigrants Johann and Maria Lange settled and farmed non-irrigated watermelons. Albert Lange bought a 40-acre vineyard in the Mokelumne River area in 1912, and grapes have been the family business since. Five generations on, the name on the label belongs to Albert's grandsons.
Brad and Randall Lange are identical twins and fourth-generation Lodi winegrape farmers. They finished college in 1972, worked with their father and older brother, and by the early 1970s had struck out on their own with a parcel bought from their father at the River Ranch, building a vineyard management company that farmed absentee owners' properties. For decades they grew and sold fruit rather than making wine.
That changed when the fifth generation joined the business in 2005 and the family built its own winery in Acampo, opening in 2006. Marissa Lange, Randall's daughter, is now president, and David Akiyoshi directs winemaking after a long career as lead winemaker at Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi. The operation is large: the family farms its own vineyards and manages thousands of additional acres across the Lodi and Clarksburg appellations, and the winery crushes and bottles for other brands alongside its own label.
Sustainability is the family's defining thread rather than a marketing line. They took part in the Lodi Winegrape Commission's grassroots grower education program that became the LODI RULES framework, and in 2006 Brad and Randall received the first California Leopold Award from the Sand County Foundation for voluntary conservation by farmers. The same year they became the first landowner to enroll in California's Regional Safe Harbor Agreement for threatened-species habitat. Thirteen acres of vines at Sandpoint were pulled and replanted with native California plants.
