Hundreds gathered May 12 in Santa Rosa, Calif., to celebrate the life of Jess Stonestreet Jackson, the founder of Kendall-Jackson, Jackson Family Wines and Stonestreet Farms, who died April 21 of cancer. He was 81.

Jackson, a lawyer by trade, ventured into the wine business originally in 1974 with the purchase of an 85-acre pear ranch near the town of Lakeport in Lake County, California, just north of the Napa Valley. There he started to develop a vineyard, at first selling grapes to others, before creating the brand Kendall-Jackson in the early 1980s. Its Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay soon became one of the most successful brands of California wines.

He parlayed that success into a billion-dollar empire, owning wineries and vineyard land across the world, from Cambria in Santa Barbara County; to La Crema, Vérité, Stonestreet and Matanzas Creek in Sonoma County; to Cardinale, La Jota and Lakoya in the Napa Valley; to Yangarra Estate Vineyard in Australia.

In a two-hour ceremony at Santa Rosa, Calif., his wife, Barbara Banke, and four of his five children spoke in memory of their friend, husband and father, a man they universally praised as both strong and gentle, a hero and inspiration to them all.

The attendees at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, typically a concert venue, reflected the many facets of  Jackson's life, from winemakers (Merry Edwards, Richard Arrowood, Melissa Stackhouse and many, many more) to horse trainers to the head of Sonoma Academy, a private high school Jackson helped found.

After welcoming all, son-in-law Don Hartford introduced the family’s hometown pastor, Ken Marshall, and later tenor Franc D’Ambrosio of Broadway's "The Phantom of the Opera," who had been a close friend over the years. He sang, "America" and "To Dream the Impossible Dream."

Friends and family remember

Banke described her husband as her partner and best friend, someone she missed talking to every day, adding, "I talk to him still."

Youngest daughter Julia broke into tears telling stories of her father’s love for music and his ability to play anything he heard on the piano, completely recalling a piece of music by ear. She described how, as a child, her father would take her tiny hands and place them over his as he played. She then crossed the stage to play Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune," a favorite of hers and her father.

College roommate Larry Horan recalled how, as freshmen at the University of California, Berkeley, and later at Boalt School of Law the two friends partook of a popular jug wine at the time, Joseph Filippi Winery's Pride of Cucamonga. Horan dryly joked, "It may have started the whole practice of tasting and spitting."

"Extraordinary man, ordinary guy," was the refrain used by good friend and Jackson board member Steve Miller, who regaled the crowd with stories about how Jackson could show up in his personal helicopter one day and in a beat-up old pickup truck the next.

Granddaughter Hailey Hartford then read a letter that had been sent by Willie Mays, who had befriended baseball fan Jackson years ago, speaking to both men’s mutual drive and devotion to hard work.

Last, Pixar chief creative officer and director John Lasseter, a Sonoma County native and vintner himself, brought the crowd to tears of laughter with funny stories of flying in helicopters with Jess and learning how not to bet on racehorses from his good friend, who later in life began a third career raising and racing thoroughbreds.

Virginie Boone is a Sonoma Valley-based wine writer. She has reported on the Northern California wine scene for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and its affiliate food and wine magazine, Savor, and is a contributing reviewer of California wines for Wine Enthusiast.

Photo: Jess Jackson. Credit: Kendall-Jackson

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