Stama looking to expand facilities and presence in Lodi

 By Ryan Jones

Record Staff Writer

 Posted Sep. 13, 2014 @ 7:00 pm

LODI — Gus Kapiniaris is busy these days.

The 73-year-old Greek immigrant, who has been growing grapes in San Joaquin County since the 1980s, is on the cusp of moving his Stama Winery to a 10-acre facility in Lodi from a cramped tasting room and part-time office in Lockeford.

Kapiniaris, who founded Stama with his son Frank in 2005, put down a drill Tuesday after helping a worker hang a door inside one of two production buildings already standing on the property on Davis Road, just south of Turner Road.

His phone rang steadily, about incoming orders and an upcoming trip to Reno to pick up steel storage tanks to go with the 20 he says he already has for the 9,000-square-foot building he’s standing in. The second building is 5,000 square feet and will include the smaller of two tasting rooms.

“Two and a half months; I hope it’s not three,” Kapiniaris said, half-joking of the target date to start wine production and open the first tasting room to the public.

Stama will be finished — including the larger tasting room, kitchen and completed landscaping in about a year, he estimated.

Kapinarias owns 200 acres of grapes, but has always outsourced his grape crushing, which is common for smaller operations in the area. The new facility will allow him to not only control all aspects of the production process, but to crush grapes for others, he said.

“I’m happy. I don’t have to pay anyone anymore. They will be coming to me,” said Kapiniaris, who has operated Stama out of a tasting room at the Tuscan Winery Village, formerly the Vino Piazza, on Locke Road.

The label features a broad selection of about 10 wines ranging in price from $14 to $28 a bottle at its tasting room. Its award-winning Zany Zin is $18.

“It’s pretty exciting,” said Camron King, the executive director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission. “It’s a quintessential American success story, that all their hard work and efforts are coming to fruition with a beautiful new facility.”

Kapiniaris, who said the winery will be built for about $3 million, said the winery will have capacity to produce 350,000 gallons of wine but he plans to produce between 150,000 and 200,000 gallons in the first year of operation.

The road for Stama, which started construction six months ago, has not been without hurdles.

Kapiniaris’ proposal went to the Planning Commission in 2011, just as county officials began to re-evaluate decade-old rules governing how rural wineries use tasting rooms, concerts and events such as weddings to attract tourists.

The agency approved the proposal, but neighbors, including nearby Lucas Winery, Jessie’s Grove Winery and Abundance Vineyards, concerned over potential noise and traffic from events at another facility, appealed — twice, Kapiniaris said.

In 2012, after the Stama proposal reached the Board of Supervisors, another appeal was filed and denied.

Kapiniaris said he doesn’t understand the opposition. He emphasized that his focus is on winemaking, saying he has three buyers in China, a broker for U.S. clients and also does business in Europe.

“I had to prove to the county that I’m here to make wine,” Kapiniaris said. “I told them production will be first.”

Kapiniaris said he has no intention of staging concerts at Stama.

“I’m not looking to sell tickets,” said Kapiniaris, who traces his family’s wine-making history back five generations to Greece.

“They’re taking total control of their product, and that’s what Lodi is truly about, taking the family heritage and producing the grapes and/or a label, and being able to share that with people,” King said.

http://www.recordnet.com/article/20140913/NEWS/140919840/101038/A_BIZ