Jordan Vineyard & Winery said it purchased Meola Vineyard in Alexander Valley, just north of Geyserville. This marks the first time that Jordan has purchased land since the acquisition of the 1,200-acre Jordan Estate in 1974. The property totals almost 45 acres with nearly 29 acres planted to cabernet sauvignon, and the purchase price was not disclosed.
“We have been looking to purchase more vineyard land for a very long time,” said John Jordan, CEO, who acquired the winery from his father in 2007. “We have kicked the proverbial tires on a few properties and didn’t make any offers because we weren’t confident that those vineyards would produce grapes worthy of the Jordan master blend. This one is guaranteed and aligns with our focus on making the best cabernet sauvignon in our house style from a combination of estate and grower vineyards.”
Owned by Mario Meola, who purchased the land in 1994, Meola Vineyard has been farmed with mostly organic principles to produce fruit-forward, subtly oaked wines like those he made growing up in southern Italy.
Conceived as an estate bottled winery modeled after First Growth Bordeaux, Jordan has evolved its grape sourcing philosophy over the last three decades. The first shift began in the mid-1990s when phylloxera struck its first estate vineyard—275 acres of land that was purchased in 1972 on the Alexander Valley floor.
This led the Jordans to plant grapevines on Jordan Estate for the first time—a hilly, forested piece of land in southeastern Alexander Valley that is home to Jordan Winery and more than 1,000 acres of open space.
The second shift began in the mid-2000s, when John Jordan took the helm. Long-time winemaker Rob Davis, who retired in 2019, was so taken by the intense black fruits and silky tannins found in the growers’ grapes from vineyards east of Geyserville that he wanted to continue making Jordan from a blend of grower and estate vineyard blocks even after the Jordan Estate’s newly planted grapevines began to bear fruit. Jordan gave Davis the green light to source grapes from any vineyard that would achieve Jordan’s fruit-forward, silky style—as long as the wine remained a cabernet sauvignon from Alexander Valley.
When red blotch disease began to spread in Napa and Sonoma counties a decade ago, another pivotal shift occurred. Since 2016, Jordan has been replanting all of its estate vineyards, roughly 125 acres over seven years.