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GEYSERVILLE, Calif. – Jess Stonestreet Jackson, the wine visionary who popularized Chardonnay in America in the early 1980s with his immediately-successful Kendall-Jackson winery and then became a pioneering architect of the ascendant American wine industry, died Thursday at his Geyserville, Calif.
Jackson's death came at the end of a long and courageous battle with cancer. He was 81.
Jackson was considered a giant in the wine industry both nationally and locally.
“He was an icon in Lake County for sure,” said Shannon Gunier, executive director of the Lake County Winegrape Commission.
Gunier said that Jackson got his start growing wine in Lake County, where his company still has vineyards, a custom crush facility on Mathews Road in Lakeport and buys a lot of local grapes for use in its wines.
A one-time longshoreman and police officer, who put himself through University of California Berkeley's Boalt Hall law school, Jackson became one of the best-known figures in American viticulture, as Kendall-Jackson became the best-selling Chardonnay in America for over two decades, the company said in a Thursday statement.
Jackson was born Feb. 18, 1930. Raised in San Francisco during the Great Depression, Jackson worked as a farmer, policeman and land-use lawyer.
Local lore holds that Jackson was introduced to the winegrape industry by local winegrape grower Hank Bartolucci, after the two men happened to sit next to each other on an airplane flight back from Hawaii.
He started the Kendall-Jackson wine business with the family's 1974 purchase of an 80-acre pear and walnut orchard in Lakeport, which he converted to a vineyard.
Gunier said Kendall-Jackson has helped promote Lake County's Sauvignon Blanc, considered one of its most successful varietals.
In 1982, he produced his first bottle of wine under the Kendall-Jackson label, and the following year the wine won the first double Platinum Award ever presented by the American Wine Competition. Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates remains today one of the most awarded wineries in the United States.
Jackson's original winemaker was Jed Steele, who left in 1990 and went on to found the award-winning Steele Wines in Kelseyville.
The two men at one point ended up in Lake County Superior Court, with Judge John Golden issuing a 1992 decision that the New York Times called a “milestone ruling” for the California wine industry.
Golden found “that a winemaking process constitutes a trade secret belonging to a winery and may not be divulged by the winemaker to subsequent employers or consulting clients,” according to reporter Lawrence M. Fisher in an article published July 2, 1992.
Said Gunier, “It was pretty contentious back in the day.”
Jackson's vision and outspoken manner often ran counter to conventional industry practices. When he realized that the quality of the French oak barrels used to age his wine was inconsistent, he invested in his own mill in France to provide barrel staves, and became a partner in a cooperage located in Missouri.
He created his own California distribution company to remain free of industry consolidation there. He was a leader in the sustainable farming movement within the wine industry, implementing dozens of environmentally-friendly farming innovations throughout the vineyards of Jackson Family Wines. As a philanthropist he and his wife Barbara Banke quietly donated millions of dollars in support of local and national charitable organizations.
Jackson was a founding member of Family Winemakers of California. In 2009, Jackson was inducted into the Vintner's Hall of Fame.
At that time he remarked, "Wine is entirely different from liquor and beer, and I'd like to see our industry free itself from the images that are used to sell those products. Wine is a part of our cultural heritage. It has always been the traditional partner with food. Wine celebrates friends, family, and love – all of the best things in life.
“When my family and I founded Kendall-Jackson in 1982, we simply wanted to create extraordinary wine from California's best vineyards,” Jackson wrote in his biographical notes. “We grow grapes on our own 14,000 acres of California coastal vineyards. We take the no-compromise, high road approach to quality required to grow our world-class grapes and produce acclaimed award-winning wines.
“From day one we have been a family-owned and family-run business,” he said. “It is a distinction that is rapidly becoming a rarity in our industry. Our family culture is built on the time-honored principles of hard work, integrity, and uncompromising desire for quality and the long-term stewardship of the land.”
Among the wines made in the Jackson Family collection are Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, Cambria, Stonestreet, Edmeades, La Crema, Cardinale, Lokoya, Hartford Family Winery, Verite, Atalon, Carmel Road, Murphy Goode, La Jota, Freemark Abbey, Bryon Estates, Arrowood, all in the U.S.; Chateau Lassegue in France; Tenuta di Arceno in Italy; Yangarra in Australia; and Calina in Chile. Jackson Family Wines is one of California's few remaining family-owned winery groups, with family members working full-time in a variety of positions.
Jackson's passion for farming and horses led him later in life to thoroughbred breeding and racing. In 2007, he became majority stakeholder in the racehorse Curlin who then won Horse of the Year for two consecutive years (2007 and 2008).
The following year, Jackson's filly, Rachel Alexandra became the first filly to win the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico in 85 years. She also won 2009 Horse of the Year. An outspoken leader in the reform of racing, Jackson won the Sportsman of the Year 2008 Insider Award.
He is survived by his wife, Barbara Banke, five children: Jennifer Hartford, Laura Giron, Katie Jackson, Julia Jackson and Christopher Jackson and two grandchildren, Hailey Hartford and MacLean Hartford.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to one of the following organizations:
Family Justice Center of Sonoma County, 600 Administration Drive, Room 103-J, Santa Rosa, CA 95403, telephone 707-565-8257, www.fjcsc.org/content.aspx?sid=1029&id=1511 .
Redwood Empire Food Bank, 3320 Industrial Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95403, 707-523-7900, www.refb.org/waystodonate.html .
Boys & Girls Club Central Sonoma County, P.O. Box 7460, Santa Rosa, CA 95407, 707-528-7977, www.bgccsc.org/give.aspx .
Racetrack Chaplaincy of America, 2365 Harrodsburg Road, Suite A120, Lexington, KY 40504, 859-410-7822, http://rtcanational.org/giving/ .
Belmont Child Care Association, Gate 6, 2150 Hempstead Turnpike, Elmont, NY 11003, 516-488-2103, www.belmontchildcare.org/a-bcca-give.html .
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