Jess Stonestreet Jackson, who popularized chardonnay in America in the early 1980s with his successful Kendall-Jackson winery and became a pioneering architect of the ascendant American wine industry, died Thursday at his Geyserville home of cancer. He was 81.
As a California vintner, Jackson built a multimillion-dollar empire on chardonnay with his popular Kendall-Jackson brand before moving into the racehorse business with his Stonestreet Stable.
“He was an icon,” said Clay Gregory, the current president and CEO of the Napa Valley Destination Council who served five years as president of Jackson Family Wines. “He was an incredible businessman, a great entrepreneur.
“His instincts were nearly always correct. He cared about what consumers thought about his wines, and when he started in the business hardly anyone was thinking about that.
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“He also was a big believer in terroir before most people knew what it was.
“From the Napa Valley perspective, I should add, he was a great admirer of Robert Mondavi.”
A one-time longshoreman and police officer who put himself through UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school, Jackson grew up in San Francisco during the Great Depression. As a land-use attorney he traveled throughout California, Gregory noted, “so when he went into the wine business, he had a vast knowledge of the land.”
Jackson started the Kendall-Jackson wine business with the family’s 1974 purchase of an 80-acre pear and walnut orchard in Lakeport that he converted to a vineyard.
In 1982, he produced his first bottle of wine under the Kendall-Jackson label. In 1983, the wine won the first double Platinum Award ever presented by the American Wine Competition.
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 also 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.
A founding member of Family Winemakers of California, Jackson was inducted into the Vintner’s Hall of Fame in 2009. 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. 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.”
The Napa Valley wineries that are part of the Jackson Family collection include Cardinale, Freemark Abbey, Lokoya, Atalon and La Jota.
Other wineries in the group are Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, Hartford Family Winery, Verite, Carmel Road, Murphy Goode, Byron Estates, Arrowood, Cambria, Stonestreet, Edmeades, La Crema in the U.S.; Chateau Lassegue in France; Tenuta di Arceno in Italy; Yangarra in Australia; and Calina in Chile.
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 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.
A letter on his company’s website ended by asking friends to “take a moment this week to lift a glass and join us in a toast to our friend and founder Jess Jackson.”
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)