Jess Jackson's New Territory

Posted 02/05/2008 at 08:51 AM by Roger

Announcements of "new" wineries seem to be almost a daily event in California. Often, however, the only thing new is the label. What happens is that an enterprising individual lines up a big-name vineyard (e.g. Beckstoffer, To Kalon) to provide a few tons of grapes, hires a celebrity wine consultant to put in the press kit sent out to wine writers, leases production equipment in a custom crush facility somewhere in Napa or parts nearby, and voilà, a new winery. And let's not forget the most important part, a price tag to put on the bottle -- -- $100 is a nice round number.

Someone who hasn't followed this model is Jess Jackson. Although he may still be best known as the founder of varietal juggernaut Kendall Jackson, over the years Jackson has morphed into the very opposite of a label engineer. In fact, he's followed the French model by focusing on terroir instead of brands and labels. Case in point, Jackson's acquisition of Napa's Freemark Abbey winery a couple of years ago.

Jackson snapped up this underperforming winery a couple of years ago at a firesale price from an undercapitalized division of a major wine company. Far from just a label, what he got in the deal was two of the best Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards in Napa Valley, Bosche and Sycamore.

Bosche sits in the heart of the Rutherford Bench next to Beaulieu's De Pins vineyard, a key component of Andre Tchelistcheff's legendary Georges de Latour Reserve Cabernet Sauvignons. Like the Georges de Latour Reserve, Bosche is a wine that ages well. Vintages from the 1970s and 80s are still going strong.

Sycamore isn't quite as well-known as a Bosche, but it may be an even better terroir. It's biodynamically farmed and ideally-positioned.  BV No. 2, the current source of Beaulieu's Georges de Latour Reserve, is just south, and Bella Oaks is a few dozen yards to the northeast. Sycamore Vineyards shares with Bosche and these other prized vineyards the easterly exposure that has yielded so many of the Cabernets on which Napa Valley's fame rests.

I came across the 2000 Freemark Abbey Sycamore at a Manhattan steakhouse recently, and couldn't resist trying it at an astonishingly reasonable $53 on the wine list. Although the 2000 is from the allegedly inferior pre-Jackson era, it was terrific. It showed the breed of the Rutherford bench terroir, offering the kind of refinement one usually associates with a classified growth Bordeaux, but it also had a California heart, offering oodles of succulent Napa Valley fruit. I'm looking forward to posting tasting notes for the revived Jackson-era releases, which are looking very promising under veteran Freemark Abbey winemaker Ted Edwards.

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