by Greg on September 18, 2012 in Featured, From the Cellar, News
The first grapes of the 2012 vintage glided down our sorting table this morning at 5 a.m. For the last week, we’ve humored the idea of Alexander Valley Merlot being harvested before Russian River Chardonnay this year because their sugar levels were charging ahead a week ago, but it was in fact Chardonnay (Dijon Clone 76) that broke the tape. This clone [...]
by Todd on September 23, 2011 in From the Kitchen
In the Jordan kitchen, we always welcome the fall harvest season with our first basket of mission and kadota figs from the estate garden. One of our most-popular harvest lunch staples, Jordan’s Garden Fig Salad with Mixed Greens, Grilled Corn and Haricots Verts is our featured Chardonnay recipe for the 2011 fall season. It’s highlighted on the culinary [...]
by Lisa on April 9, 2011 in News
It’s amazing to think that more than one year has past since we debuted this video blog. On behalf of everyone at Jordan, thank you for watching our videos, reading our blog posts and joining us on our journey to share the arts of winemaking, viticulture and wine country hospitality. To celebrate our anniversary, we created a montage [...]
by Todd on February 26, 2010 in From the Land
Like winemaking, a critical step in crafting extra virgin olive oil is creating the master blend. One week after our EVOO is racked (see recent blog post), we re-taste each barrel drum of Arbequina, Frantoio, Leccino and Pendolino oil in preparation for our annual blending trial exercise. Yesterday, our consultant Kevin Rogers and I tasted three potential blends of [...]
by Lisa on February 8, 2010 in From the Kitchen
El Niño, characterized by unusually warm temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator, caused a wave of January rainstorms in Sonoma County—and an early harvest in our garden thus far this season. On January 15, our white asparagus arrived two months early, so we recorded a video of Sous Chef Manuel burying the asparagus to deprive [...]
by Todd on February 2, 2010 in From the Kitchen
When conceiving ideas for menus, we work backward: We start in the garden and at the store, taking inspiration from the seasonal fruits and vegetables available. The citrus season is at its peak, so beautiful, ripe blood oranges and Meyer lemons were the cornerstone ingredients in our dessert served Thursday, a financier pastry topped with a blood-orange, [...]
by Ronald on January 13, 2010 in From the Cellar
One of the vital steps to crafting a great Chardonnay involves lees, residual yeast cells that remain in contact with the wine during fermentation and aging. The lees help give Chardonnay its round mouthfeel and mild tannins. When fermentation and aging are complete, we rack our Chardonnay from the lees, leaving the yeast cells as a by-product. In keeping [...]
by Dana on January 8, 2010 in From the Land
Our estate olives were harvested in November and in early December 2009. We recorded a quick video, which includes an olive harvest report and scenes from the last day of harvest in December. Small bins are used to harvest our olives in the Italian brucatura tradition, a method where our estate workers pull each olive from [...]
by Dana on January 3, 2010 in From the Vineyards
Every growing season—and grape harvest—has its own distinct personality. Grapes can be precocious or take their own sweet time to mature. Harvests can range from hectic to calm and thrilling to frustrating. These grapes are our babies in many ways. It’s the birth of a new vintage we plan carefully and anticipate at the end [...]
