Sass Jordan jumps into winemaking business
Montreal-raised singer making noise with Idol connection and Kick Ass Sass
Sure, any hotshot celeb can win awards, earn gold records or land spots in a walk-of-fame, but in this day and age, they haven’t really arrived until they get their own line of wine.
The Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Francis Ford Coppola, Dave Matthews, Carlos Santana, Mick Fleetwood and John Legend are among this ever-proliferating gang of oenophiles who can boast their own brands of vinos.
Hell, even Nancy Pelosi, the no-nonsense Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has her own California vineyard — and probably had to knock back plenty of her produce to sit behind and listen to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Now we can add to this august group, rock star Sass Jordan, the
first female musician in Canada to join the club.
The Montreal-raised belter has entered the rarefied world of wine, but in typical Jordan style, not subtly — which is why she goes by the name of Sass.
Jordan recently launched her Kick Ass Sass line, having teamed up with Ontario-based Vineland Estates vintner Brian Schmidt. Available for consumption is the Kick Ass Sass Red (2016), a Cabernet Franc, and Kick Ass Sass White (2017), a Chardonnay and Riesling blend. Both sell for $20.
If pressed, Jordan will rhapsodize about the hints of cherry, black currant, bramble and spice in the red or the notes of apple, citrus, peach, lime and honey in the white.
But she’d much prefer to knock back a glass or two than to talk.
Typically, though, she doesn’t hold back, either.
“Chardonnay and Riesling are two grapes I hate, so I had reservations,” she blurts.
“But it turned out better than I could have ever imagined.”
The key is that the white is un-oaked — something that most wine aficionados would agree on.
“Precisely. If it was oaked, it wouldn’t have my name on it. And, of course, the red is @#$%ing badass.”
All of which explains how Jordan emerged with her brand name over such suggestions as Songs from the Vine and Don’t Kiss Sass — the latter implying that she won’t sell her soul to get ahead.
“I really don’t know what possessed me to do this. Other than I woke up one day and I thought ‘Why the hell would I not try to make a wine? I love wine. It seemed so logical. As a musician, the things I like most are playing music and drinking wine.”
Right. Until rehab and the need for a new liver.
“Drinking responsibly, of course. A career can’t last as long as mine otherwise,” she says.
“Making wine is nice in theory, but like anything else, it’s never that simple, is it? Still, anything I do has to be prefaced by fun.”
Jordan concedes she initially knew very little how to go about putting together her brand.
“I didn’t want to make a wine in which I would end up with 10 bottles that I would keep in my cellar.”
But then fate smiled and in stepped her vintner pal Schmidt, with whom she had worked on Canadian Idol. The initial production yielded about 200 cases of the two wines, much of which has already been sold. (They are available only online through vinelandwineshop.com/store.)
I didn’t want to make a wine in which I would end up with 10 bottles that I would keep in my cellar.
It’s been quite the wild ride for Jordan. As some locals will recall, it’s been an odyssey that has taken her from shilling coffee beans on Greene Ave. to shilling Cabernet Franc. Oh yeah, and in the midst of her obsession with beverages, there has been and continues to be an impressive singing career over a 37-year span, with such hit discs as Racine and Rats and a Juno Award, among other honours.
To mark the 25th anniversary of Racine last year, Jordan decided that she would “re-imagine” it on the disc Racine Revisited.
She did updated versions of each song with a new musical team, led by her husband, Guess Who whiz Derek Sharp — who both produced and played various instruments on it.
She is now embarking on a new musical endeavour called The Big Noise Project.
“That’s because the only way it seems to get any attention in this age of a deluge of information is to make very big noise,” says Jordan, currently on tour.
“I think of this as a musical art installation. It will be a collaboration with musicians from all over the world. What I plan to do is to write songs for people I would ordinarily never pair up with, from different genres. And then record a song with each different collaborator, and launch them as we go along.”
No worries, however, about which wines to pair with the various launches. bbrownstein@postmedia.com twitter.com/ billbrownstein