Travel + Leisure - India & South Asia
MAGGIE KRUSE
Winemaker at Jordan Vineyard & Winery
RAISED IN Wisconsin by a father who worked at Miller Brewing Co., Maggie Kruse was always interested in fermentation. Though she briefly considered a future in beer, a family trip to the Napa Valley convinced her to focus on wine. “I kind of got that buzz,” she recalls. “It was that time of year, in October, when everything just smelled amazing. There’s an energy during harvest that you can feel. I just wanted to be a part of that party.” The U.C. Davis program funneled her to an internship at J Vineyards & Winery, which led to an enologist position at Jordan Vineyard & Winery, a Frenchinspired Healdsburg estate that produces Bordeaux-style Cabernet Sauvignon and Burgundy-style Chardonnay. For 13 years, Kruse was mentored by winemaker Rob Davis, who had been expertly running the show since Jordan’s first vintage in 1976. When Davis retired in 2019, she took over and began making subtle tweaks to the process behind the company’s two widely sold bottles. Kruse is revamping the process for the Chardonnay by sourcing grapes in accordance with the changing climate and replacing some of the barrels with sculptural, egg-shaped concrete tanks. “The concrete will elevate that fruit without overpowering it and really emphasise those mineral characteristics,” she explains. “We’ll always have some French oak because oak is a great tool. But if I can scale it back a little bit, I would like to.” Wine isn’t the only thing changing at Jordan. The romantic yellow château that houses the winery and tasting rooms is undergoing a renovation—the team has completed an update of the guest suites, bookable by Jordan Estate Rewards members, which are outfitted with a mix of European antiques and modern amenities. Kruse’s wine-making work also looks to both past and future: “I want people to see that it’s still in the Jordan style, and to see that it’s going to be better.”