A Visit to Jordan  Vineyard and Winery
By: Barnaby Dorfman
Published: November 12, 2012

We recently were hosted by Jordan Vineyard and Winery where we shot this video. It's a stunningly beautiful property that produces uniquely delicious wines!


 
Video Transcript:
Hi there, Barnaby Dorfman with Foodista.com. I am here in the vineyards and olive growing fields of Jordan Winery. We were hosted by them last night and got to stay in their chateau, which is built like a French chateau. It’s an amazing experience. We had a wine tasting and a tour and learned about this amazing winery which only produces two kinds of wine. They produce a chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon. They’re also one of the oldest wineries in California and have had the same wine maker for 35 years who is still actively making their wine. And so, through history and tradition, they do the same thing year in, year out and make it better and better and better.  If you can find it I highly recommend you try it. Most of their wine is sold through restaurants, so check out wine lists as you’re out dining for an amazing experience. I would say the chardonnay the neat thing about it is that it is very light on the oak. So, while a big wine and a great wine, it doesn’t have that heavy oaky flavor and doesn’t taste like a piece of furniture is kind of the way I would describe it. I want to show you a little bit of what we’re seeing here because it really is pretty amazing.
One of the things that makes this winery fantastic is it’s family owned and operated which is increasingly rare. The family bought the property in 1972, I think, and have improved it and added on to it year in and year out and actually the original founders son is now the owner and CEO. It’s an amazing example of stewardship of land.  I really haven’t been to many places where this size property, thousands of acres, it feels like every leaf of grass and everything is cared for an attended to in some way. There’s deliberateness to how things are laid out. I’m just going to show you and keep talking, going to switch my camera around and show you some of what we have here. I’m going to switch my camera as I’m going. That’s not working as well as I thought; I’m going to flip the camera around. Over here we have olives. They’ve already harvested the grapes. I’ll get up real close. This tree is just filled with olives, heavy with olives. For those of you who are not familiar with the olive oil making process, the olives are picked and then crushed and it’s amazing. This is a real ripe olive here and there’s juice coming out and you can actually feel the oil on your skin as you’re rubbing it between your fingers. The olives themselves you can’t eat, they’re very bitter. The ones we eat in the cans that are from jars are cured and go through a chemical process that makes them taste good and be edible. The other thing I want to show you real quick is a little bit of the grape vines. These, as I’ve said, have already been harvested.
There’s a sign here, I think it’s turned upside-down, but this is a walk of cabernet where they’re growing their amazing grapes from which they produce their amazing wine. And here’s a little bit of a panoramic shot of some of their property. It’s as far as you can see and beyond, actually. There’s one of the houses there. So, this is Barnaby Dorfman again here from Jordan Wineries. Check out their wines. They are open to the public by appointment only, so check out their website if you wanted to come by and do a tasting and get some of their wines here in Northern California.