May 18 – This Week’s Show
My guest this week is Ken Abolins, Region manager for Jackson Family Fine Wines.
Every wine enthusiast knows about Kendall-Jackson wines. The Vintners Reserve line is the most popular series of wines with the widest distribution and restaurant wine list presents, especially the Chardonnay. But you may not know “The Rest of The Story!” My first visit to the original Lake County Kendall-Jackson winery was in 1989, Jed Steele was the winemaker and my brother and I had a fine wine country luncheon with Jess Jackson’s daughter Janet. We tasted everything produced at that time, recorded a radio show, and it was memorable.
I also had the opportunity to meet and chat with Jess Jackson and Randy Ollum (winemaker at the time and now he oversees the entire KJ portfolio) at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic many years ago. Jess Stonestreet Jackson was a force of great magnitude in many aspects of California winemaking prior to his untimely passing. After several years of treatment for melanoma, Jackson died on 21 April 2011.
Kendall-Jackson may be most often associated with the winery’s flagship Vintner’s Reserve line, starring its best-selling Chardonnay, but there is much more to this Sonoma County wine producer. The brand was founded in 1982 by Jess Jackson, who replaced pear and walnut trees with Chardonnay grapevines on an 80-acre orchard he purchased north of Napa Valley.
From there, Kendall-Jackson would go on to launch multiple collections, become a leader in sustainability and conservation, and take home many prestigious honors, including the American Wine Competition’s first-ever Platinum Award for an American Chardonnay.
Jackson Family Wines has been family-owned and run since the planting of the first vines in 1974. Each of the 40+ wineries in the portfolio has its own distinct fingerprint and style driven by the terroir of the vineyards located across the top wine-growing regions of the world.
Ken and I will be sharing the story of the growth of the portfolio, the many vineyard and label acquisitions and talk about many of the premium labels produced today. The wine of the week is just one of the premium wines produced!
Good Life Guy’s Wine of the Week:
2019 Freemark Abbey Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
This Napa Valley Cabernet is an interpretation of a quintessentially classic style. The color is deep garnet and the nose yields aromas of dark chocolate, pomegranate, cedar shavings, blackberry, and leather. The palate exhibits flavors of blueberry compote, black cherry, espresso, and cigar box with bright and juicy fruit forward sensations. The texture is rich and bold with well-structured tannins that make it approachable now and will yield great results in the cellar for decades. ABV14.5%