Wine Tasting Notes
Kendall-Jackson Wines.
Kendall-Jackson’s 12,000+ acre California holdings include vineyards in four counties: Mendocino, Sonoma, Monterey and Santa Barbara. With an estimated 1.7 to 1.8 million cases produced annually, Kendall-Jackson the 13th largest wine producer in the US. The company produces four lines of wines: “Stature” (a red Meritage, or Bordeaux blend), “Highland Estates” (Chardonnay, Cabernet sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot noir and Syrah from higher elevation vineyards not necessarily in the K-J portfolio), “Vintner’s Reserve” (a higher tier of wines from coastal vineyards, made from Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon blanc, Muscat canelli, Cabernet sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot noir, Syrah, Zinfandel and a Meritage blend) and “Grand Reserve” (Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Bordeaux varieties from the coolest coastal AVAs).
Producing wine on a scale as large as Kendall-Jackson’s poses challenges but also affords the company some uncommon luxuries such as having their own stave mill to produce their own French oak barrels. The new direction at Kendall-Jackson indicates an attempt to make terroir-driven, (or at least site-designated) wines. To this end, a selection of wines with AVA and even vineyard designation have been produced.
Kendall-Jackson wines are made by a team of three wine makers: Randy Ullom, Chris Johnson and Mark Theis. The team is headed by Michigan native, Ullom as Winemaster. He caught the wine bug in Chile in the 1970s while on sabbatical from college. After returning stateside, he studied crop production with a focus on Viticulture & Enology at Ohio State and went on to make wine in Ohio, upstate New York, and Sonoma’s De Loach Vineyards. After 12 years at De Loach, he was hired on by Kendall-Jackson and four years later (in 1997) became Winemaster.
Chris Johnson oversees production of Kendall-Jackson’s red wines. A California (Sacramento) native, he studied viticulture and enology at Fresno State. He made wine on Canada’s Niagara Peninsula, New York’s Finger lakes region and Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. He came on board at Kendall-Jackson in 2001 with 17 years of wine making experience under his belt and a year later took over red wine production.
Mark Theis supervises white wine production for KJ. Raised on a cattle ranch in Kansas, he studied Fermentation Science at UC Davis. He has made wine in Monterey after graduating and then moved north to Mendocino County. Ten years later, he joined Kendall-Jackson and soon became the white wine maker.
For the most part, K-J wines are quite consistent with current trends and standards of style for each variety. Whole cluster pressing and fermenting Chardonnay in oak with liberal use of new French and American oak in aging (sur lie with semi-monthly manual bâtonnage). Other whites are fermented in steel tanks. Reds undergo a cold soak and extended maceration. These wines are then transferred into French oak barrels for malolactic fermentation and aging. Individual vineyard lots are kept separate until the final blend and generally released without much significant bottle age.
2005 Kendall-Jackson Seco Highlands Chardonnay, Arroyo Seco
2005 Kendall-Jackson Seco Highlands Pinot noir, Arroyo Seco
2004 Kendall-Jackson Alisos Hills Syrah, Santa Barbara County
2004 Kendall-Jackson Camelot Highlands Chardonnay, Santa Barbara County
2003 Kendall-Jackson Alisos Hills Syrah, Santa Barbara County
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