The late Jess Jackson and his family bought an 80 acre pear and walnut orchard in Lakeport, California in 1974 which they converted to a vineyard and began selling wines locally. In 1983 Kendall-Jackson chardonnay won the first Platinum award ever presented by the American Wine Competition and since then it has been one of America’s favourite wines.
The business continues to be an entirely family-run concern, now owning 12,000 acres of vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, Monterey and Mendocino. All of them are farmed sustainably (and certified as such), and they have gone into partnership with a French stave mill and a cooperage in the US to ensure that their barrels are up to their own high expectations.