Manteca largest year-round agricultural employer is gearing up for a major expansion.
Delicato Family Vineyards plans to expand the winery north of Manteca at Highway 99 and French Camp Road in three phases over the next 15 years. The plans go before the San Joaquin County Planning Commission Thursday, April 20, at 6:30 pm. when they meet in the auditorium of the San Joaquin County Department of Public Health Services, 1601 East Hazelton Ave., Stockton.
The Manteca winery established in 1924 has a current storage capacity of 42 million gallons and bottles 3 million cases annually. Some 230 of DFV Wines’ 338 year-round employees work in the Manteca winery along Highway 99 southwest of the French Camp interchange. They also have another 350 seasonal employees.
Delicato Vineyards plans to:
uwithin 18 months construct 731,128 square feet of buildings including bottling, warehouse, and administration buildings.
uwithin 10 years relocate existing buildings as well as accommodate a multiple tank farm, hopper and fermenter expansions, and construct 40,000 square feet of buildings to be used for maintenance, refrigeration plants, and wine processing cellar.
uwithin 15 years construct 80 additional wine storage tanks.
To put the expansion in perspective, Delicato currently has buildings consisting of 249,801 square feet on 64.08 acres. When the 770,000 square feet are completed it will be the equivalent of the combined floor space of Home Depot, Target and Ford Motors Small parts Distribution Center that are located in Manteca’s Spreckels Park.
Delicato in March of 2012 leased a 533,000-square-foot warehouse in Manteca’s Spreckels Park located between Ford Motor Company’s Small Parts Distribution Center and Millard Refrigeration Services. It is the second largest warehouse facility in Manteca with only the 550,000-square-foot Ford small parts distribution center next door being larger.

Winery roots
go back to 1924
Delicato was founded by Sicilian immigrant Gaspare Indelicato who planted the first vines in 1924 on the site of today’s winery. The first vintage was in 1935 and generated 3,500 barrels. That initial vineyard — which still produces — planted the seed for one of California’s largest vineyard empires.
Gaspare’s three sons — Vincent, Frank and Anthony — joined the family winery as business grew. The third generation of Indelciatos —Chris, Jay, Cheryl, Frank Jr., Claude, Mike and Marie — have taken over the day-to-day operations.
Their holdings now include the fabled San Bernabe Vineyards. It encompasses 11,000 acres that stretch for nine miles in Monterey. It is the world’s most diverse and largest single-owned vineyard.
There are 110 distinct vineyard blocks farmed individually featuring 20 different grape varietals that flourish in a series of micro climates that start with near sea-level, often fog-enshrouded vineyards and work their way up hills to elevations gaining just under 2,000 feet.
Among the Monterey vineyards comes Pinor Noir, Riesling and Chardonnay.
The other major family vineyard is Clay Station Vineyards, some 1,250 acres on the valley’s edge and in the Sierra foothills east of Lodi. The rich, red clay with stone “cobbles” is considered ideal for drainage critical to sweetening the fruit. There are six varietals in the classic Mediterranean climate featuring sunny dry summers and cooling nighttime breezes from the Delta.
From the Lodi region comes Zinfandel, Cabernet, and Chardonnay.
DFV Wines also focuses on securing Napa’s varietals as well as accessing grapes from their “ultra-premium regions” — Russian River Valley and Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County.
The Indelicatos refer to the Monterey-Napa Valley/Sonoma-Lodi combination as “the golden triangle.”
The Delicato Monterey Winery was established in 1988 and has a crushing capacity of 30,000 tons. The warehouse capacity is 11,000 barrels while the barrel room capacity is 1.5 million gallons.
DFW Wines has one of the top “winery to winery” services in the United States. They serve the top 30 largest premium wine companies. Their services include exclusive brand development, new product development, buyers own label custom blends, and overseas packaging services.
That portion of the business — credited with establishing Delicato Vineyards as a “winemaker’s winemaker” — was the handiwork of Gaspare’s three sons.
The third generation gets credit for developing the branded wine business, plus establishing a global market for DFV Wines.
In 2010, DFV purchased the Black Stallion Winery in the Napa Valley.
There are two board of directors. The family board consists of chairman Vince Indelicato, Dorothy Indelicato, Chris Indelicato, Jay Indelicato, Frank Indelicato Jr., and Mike Indelicato.
The advisor board consists of chairman Chris Day as well as Michael Mondavi, Bruce Chizen, Cheryl Indelicato, Jay Indelicato, and Marie Indelicato Mathews.
 
To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com