Jess Stonestreet Jackson Jr. (February 18, 1930 – April 21, 2011) was an American billionaire

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

, racehorse owner, and businessman. He started the Kendall-Jackson wine business with his first wife, Jane Kendall (Wadlow) Jackson. The family's 1974 purchase of an

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...

and

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

Lakeport, California Lakeport is a city in and the county seat of Lake County, California. The city is northwest of Sacramento. Lakeport is on the western shore of Clear Lake, at an elevation of . The population was 5,026 at the 2020 census, up from 4,753 at th ...

, was converted to a

vineyard A vineyard ( , ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines. Many vineyards exist for winemaking; others for the production of raisins, table grapes, and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is kno ...

. As of 2010, Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay was one of the most popular wines on the market.

Early life and education

Jess Jackson grew up during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

and was raised in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

's Sunset District.Fish, Tim, "Sonoma Vintner Jess Jackson Dies", ''

Wine Spectator ''Wine Spectator'' is an American lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine, wine culture and wine ratings. It is the flagship publication of M. Shanken Communications, which also publishes ''Cigar Aficionado'', ''Whisky Advocate'', ''Market Watch' ...

'', 15 June 2011, p. 14. His father, a teacher, was out of work three times while he was growing up, and there were times when the family had to survive on rice. To help support his family, Jackson started working at an early age. From the age of five, when he got his first job as a paper boy, he worked a variety of jobs including candy maker, a

soda jerk Soda jerk (or soda jerker) is an American term used to refer to a person—typically a young man—who would operate the soda fountain in a restaurant, preparing and serving carbonated drink, soda drinks and ice cream sodas. The drinks were made ...

, a temp at the post office, a

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whic ...

picker, a

longshoreman A dockworker (also called a longshoreman, stevedore, docker, wharfman, lumper or wharfie) is a waterfront manual laborer who loads and unloads ships. As a result of the intermodal shipping container revolution, the required number of dockworke ...

, a teamster, a lifeguard, and an ambulance driver. Jackson graduated from San Francisco's Abraham Lincoln High School. He earned a law degree from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. While studying law he worked as a dock laborer, a Berkeley policeman, and an ambulance driver to put himself through school. Upon his graduation from Berkeley in 1951, Jackson started practicing real estate law.

Wine production

In the late 1950s, Jess Jackson started a law firm in the San Francisco area, specializing in property rights issues. Jackson was one of the founding members of the American California Trial Lawyers Association. In the 1970s, he was also one of the four founding members of Decimus, a company that leased

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

mainframe computers to corporations. In 1974, Jackson and his first wife, Jane Kendall Jackson, purchased an 80-acre pear-and-walnut orchard in Lakeport. He converted it to growing

Chardonnay Chardonnay (, ; ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new a ...

and other varietals after realizing that there was increasing demand for high-quality grapes in the area. He sold the property's grapes to local wineries until 1981, when a down market led to a surplus of grapes on the market. Faced with the prospect of selling his grapes for a price that wouldn't cover the costs of growing them, he decided to make his own wine. He decided to produce affordable wines with an emphasis on quality, and, two years later, he released the first Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay. That year it became the first wine ever to win a Platinum Award from the American Wine Competition. Jackson and Kendall divorced in the early 1980s and Jackson later married Barbara Banke. Banke became his co-manager of their wine businesses. Jackson and Banke continued to expand their business, eventually owning about 25,000 acres in California, 14,000 of which were planted with wine grapes. In 1992, Jackson prevailed in a highly contentious lawsuit against his former winemaker Jed Steele that prohibited Steele from revealing the formula for the Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay. In 1997, Jackson lost a lawsuit against

E & J Gallo Winery Gallo is an American wine producer and distributor headquartered in Modesto, California. Previously called E & J Gallo Winery, it was founded in 1933 by Ernest Gallo and Julio Gallo of the Gallo family, and is the largest exporter of Califor ...

in which he alleged that Gallo's Turning Leaf label was a ripoff of his Vintner's Reserve. Among the wineries in his Jackson Family Wines portfolio, as of 2009, are Kendall-Jackson, Murphy-Goode, and Robert Pecota Winery. As of early 2009, it was ranked as the ninth largest winery holding company in the United States. Jackson's brands at the time of his death were producing 5 million cases of wine annually. In 2005, Jackson was listed by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine as tied for the 366th wealthiest person in the world, with $1.8 billion in assets. The 2010 list by ''Forbes'' magazine placed Jackson as the 536th richest person in the world, with $1.9 billion in assets.

Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay

Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay debuted in 1982 with a 16,000-case production. In 1983, Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay won first ever Platinum Award from the American Wine Competition. American's demand for Chardonnay picked up at the same time. Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve help Chardonnay become the most popular grape varietal amongst American wine drinkers. Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay is the most popular selling wine made from that varietal, which makes it the most popular wine in America. Ray Isle of ''Food and Wine Magazine'' ranked Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay as one of his "50 Wines You Can Always Trust" in April 2007. A ''People Magazine'' article also reported that

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

owned a bottle of the company's chardonnay.

Vintner's Hall of Fame

Jess Jackson was inducted into the Vintner's Hall of Fame in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to the wine industry. He was among several others being inducted that year, including winemaker Warren Winiarski, whose Stag's Leap

Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Lebano ...

won first place over Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Haut-Brion in the 1976

Judgment of Paris The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War, and in later versions to the foundation of Rome. Eris (mythology), Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding ...

, and the Beringer Brothers, whose wines helped to establish Napa Valley's reputation as a top grape-growing region.

Thoroughbred racing

In 2007, Jackson bought a controlling interest in the champion racehorse

Curlin Curlin (foaled March 25, 2004, in Kentucky) is an American Thoroughbred horse racing, racehorse who was the American Horse of the Year in both 2007 and 2008. He retired in 2008 as the highest North American money earner with over US$10.5 ...

, who won the

Preakness Stakes The Preakness Stakes is an American thoroughbred horse race held annually on Armed Forces Day, the third Saturday in May at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland (except in 2026 when it will move to Laurel Park (race track), Laurel Park dur ...

and the

Breeders' Cup Classic The Breeders' Cup Classic is a Grade I Weight for Age thoroughbred horse race for 3-year-olds and older run at a distance of on dirt. It is held annually at a different racetrack in the United States as part of the Breeders' Cup World Champion ...

that year. In 2008, the horse won the $6 million Dubai World Cup. Jackson won the Sportsman of the Year 2008 Insider Award: "To owner Jess Jackson for believing in the greatness of his beloved

then went above and beyond the call to prove it." Jackson's investments in racehorses totaled over $200 million.

Death

After several years of treatment for

melanoma Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer; it develops from the melanin-producing cells known as melanocytes. It typically occurs in the skin, but may rarely occur in the mouth, intestines, or eye (uveal melanoma). In very rare case ...

, Jackson died on April 21, 2011. He was buried in a newly created 12,000 square-foot cemetery on an Alexander Valley hilltop.

References

External links

Jess Jackson profile at Kendall-Jackson Estates
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Jess 1930 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American lawyers American billionaires American racehorse owners and breeders American people in the wine industry Businesspeople from California People from Lakeport, California People from Sonoma County, California UC Berkeley School of Law alumni