Heiress Apparent
Sonoma County wine ambassador Julia Jackson extols her late father’s legacy with one-time California habitué gerrie lim ensconced in the inner sanctum of Morton’s of Chicago at the Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers in Kowloon, Julia Jackson is a study in understated elegance, being dressed entirely in Burberry except for Repetto shoes. However, she still remembers April 2011, the turning point in her life when she watched her famous father, the billionaire vintner Jess Jackson, succumb to cancer at age 81, and her subsequent vow on his deathbed to help preserve his legacy – which explains why she’s now here, still traversing the globe from California’s Sonoma County to further spread his wine gospel.
Back in late December 2012, I made a sentimental visit to the most famous estate he’d founded, Kendall-Jackson in Healdsburg, itself merely part of a vast empire called Jackson Family Wines, which comprises some 34 wine brands and whose most popular tipple, Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay, played a vital role during my own wine-formative years. On this particular afternoon in Hong Kong, however, we’re tasting the new 2010 vintages from the Artisan Collection – smallproduction, Bordeaux-style blends made by vigneron Pierre Seillan and winemaker Christopher Carpenter from various Napa and Sonoma vineyards, priced with due panache: Cardinale (US$ 250 a bottle at retail), Lokoya (US$ 350) and Vérité (US$ 390), all complex and opulent wines firmly directed at the discerning drinker.
Her personal favourite, the 2010 Lokoya from their Howell Mountain vineyard, would soon be served over dinner, paired with double-cut rib lamb chop. This was her fourth trip to Hong Kong, a city she first saw in 1997 with her father, who’d brought her to view the handover ceremonies.
Everyone has a wine epiphany. What was yours?
I was on a date with Chris, my then boyfriend in college, back in 2007 in Mendocino, California. We were having lamb and it was pairing really, really well with the wine, which was a Le Crema (Pinot Noir) from the Russian River estate, which my family owns. I had just never had a food and wine pairing that was so exceptional, so that was my epiphany, when I just fell in love with wine and food.
From your Artisan Collection I particularly love Cardinale, and I’m guessing it exists to
Yes, I’m also a big fan of Cardinale and, to me, it’s a wine that perfectly expresses the diversity of Napa, from the mountains to the valley floor. It’s the essence of Napa in one wine and, in that sense, demonstrates the quality and diversity of Napa’s terroir to a consumer who might be new to wine. Lokoya, as a complement, shows the strength and power of Napa mountain fruit, a rarity because mountain fruit makes up only four percent of all the vineyard land in Napa and is quite distinct from valley-floor fruit. Equally, Vérité displays the very best of Sonoma and its diverse terrain, and shows how this lesserknown region can go head-to-head with Napa and even Bordeaux.
During your earlier presentation, you described Vérité as a “bridge between Sonoma and Bordeaux.” But are you competing with Bordeaux?
We don’t see ourselves as competing with Bordeaux, but more as sharing the stage with them. Ever since the famous Paris tasting of 1976 the wines of Napa have been recognised as being of world-class quality, and our aim is to continue that tradition. Pierre Seillan, our