Jordan Estate Tales - Volume 9, 2014 - 5

ROB'S WELCOME

2010 is such a memorable vintage
for me because we overcame the
odds and curveballs Mother Nature
threw us-like a great Major League
team would.
uropean winemaking is a history of empirical
experience." Those were the words André
Tchelistcheff, the great wine guru, once said to me
while we were driving to visit a winery in France.
Jordan celebrated its 38th harvest in 2013, and similar to
André's observation, I would agree that our winemaking skills
have grown and developed, thanks to lessons learned over the
span of all those harvests. I love the stories our customers
share with enthusiasm about Jordan vintages from the '70s,
'80s and '90s. They bring back so many memories for me too!
But as much as we reflect on an individual vintage's success,
we most certainly have continued to improve on our
winemaking with our most current wines.
2010 is really a benchmark vintage for Jordan. So many
things contributed to the crafting of the 2010 Jordan Cabernet
Sauvignon: the continued pursuit of ideal vineyard sites, the
combined experience of our team, John Jordan's challenge
to make every vintage better than the last, and the list goes
on. The celebration of getting the grapes into the winery
before a memorable downpour of rain coincided with our
local San Francisco Giants winning the World Series. (Many
of our customers know that I'm a life-long San Francisco
Giants fan.) When the Giants pitcher, Brian Wilson, held out
his arms to capture the joy of winning a championship with
a strike out, our winemaking team mimicked the same joy
when our last grape hit the hopper, the day before the rains
began. 2010 is such a memorable vintage for me because
we overcame the odds and curveballs Mother Nature threw
us-like a great Major League team would. With two years of
bottle age under its cap, the 2010 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon
teems with black fruits that just jump out of the glass. The
structure is so beautifully balanced from the entry of the wine
to the palate to finish that the fruit expressions are seamless.
When tasting the final blend before bottling, John Jordan said,

"This is the best Cabernet I have tasted from Jordan."
Now that is tall praise!
The 2012 growing season-the most memorable to date for
me-surprisingly coincided with another Giants World Series.
Certainly the chances of such a perfect year just don't come
along as often as I would like. But honestly, I have never seen
better fruit. From hopper to press to barrel, our senses were
overwhelmed with such a cornucopia of aromas and flavors.
Our Chardonnay winemaking has always been inspired by the
great wines of Burgundy: crisp apple aroma, firm acidity and
mineral accents. The expressions of our newly released 2012
Jordan Chardonnay will make even the most sophisticated
sommelier nod at the similar style of wine and question its
geography.	
We hope you agree that our wine offerings continue to
delight the palate. John's insistence on making improvements
every year is a great inspiration for our winemaking team-
much like his father's insistence, back when the winery was
founded in the 1970s, to provide wines that offer pleasure and
refinement to all wine enthusiasts. Our new releases of 2010
Cabernet Sauvignon and 2012 Chardonnay truly merit the
approval of father and son.
And as the spring of 2014 unfolds, maybe the start of another
World Series is taking root!
Cheers,

Rob Davis
Winemaker

5
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Jordan Estate Tales - Volume 9, 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Jordan Estate Tales - Volume 9, 2014
