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American Winery of the Year: Kendall-Jackson Winery

Kendall Jackson Winery

The iconic Sonoma estate produces the top-selling wine in America today.

The meteoric rise of California Chardonnay over the last several decades has much to do with one producer, Kendall-Jackson, and one wine, Vintner’s Reserve.

In California, Kendall-Jackson is a testament to family-owned success in the wine business, an example of consistent quality. This year, it celebrates the 35th anniversary of the release of its Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay, the top-selling Chardonnay in America for the last 25 years.

“Since the first vintage, Kendall-Jackson’s Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay has made a mark on the consumption of wine in America,” says Barbara Banke, chairman and proprietor of Kendall-Jackson. “Our consistent commitment to quality, starting with our impeccably farmed coastal vineyards, has made Vintner’s Reserve America’s favorite wine for over 25 years. This is no easy task, but as a family-owned company, we are here for the long run.”

Today, Chardonnay is California’s most widely grown wine grape, with more than 94,000 acres planted. It’s also the most popular white wine in the United States, representing an estimated 20 percent of all table wine purchased. And sales have increased every year.

Kendall-Jackson has a lot to do with the growth and collective love for Chardonnay.

“It has transformed Chardonnay and Chardonnay drinkers,” says Randy Ullom, who was brought in as winemaker for Kendall-Jackson in 1993 and promoted to winemaster in 1997. “It has become an accepted mainstay.”

Jess Jackson and original winemaker Jed Steele began Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay in 1982. Its central conceit—to blend across appellations and varieties (at the beginning, not everything was Chardonnay)—broke established norms and was a bold swipe at tradition.

A book about Kendall-Jackson’s rise, A Man and His Mountain: The Everyman who Created Kendall-Jackson and Became America’s Greatest Wine Entrepreneur (PublicAffairs, 2013), by Edward Humes, describes the early growth of Vintner’s Reserve. It details how the original 1982 run of the wine grew from 18,000 cases to 36,000 cases the next year. By 1986, sales had already reached 85,000 cases.

“The rise of Vintner’s Reserve helped define a new movement in California winemaking, which came to be known as the era of ‘fighting varietals,’ ” wrote Humes. “Jackson brought Chardonnay into this mix in a big way, with Vintner’s Reserve emerging as one of the biggest winners.”

The wine began earning awards early on. In 1983, it won the first-ever Platinum Award for an American Chardonnay at the American Wine Competition. Then, it took home top honors at the Los Angeles County Fair.

Before long, former First Lady Nancy Reagan became a fan, and cases of Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay were shipped directly to the White House. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen referred to it as “Nancy’s wine.”

In 1992, Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay became the country’s number one Chardonnay in sales. In 2014, it became the top-selling wine in America.

Today, Vintner’s Reserve is 100-percent coastal Chardonnay, 95-percent barrel fermented in up to 1,000 small lots, where the lees is hand-stirred once a month.

“We source all of the fruit along the cool coast of California, and we keep every lot separate, from so many different vineyards, from Santa Barbara to Monterey to Sonoma to Mendocino, and the majority of the vineyards are ours,” says Ullom. “Working with all the different barrel profiles and toasts is a challenge, too, as we use real barrels.”

Asked why the wine appeals to so many consumers, he says, “It has a kiss of butter, a kiss of toasty soft oak, and it’s very fruit forward. It’s round and lush on the palate, with a long-lingering finish that beckons for another sip.”

For its profound effect on the growth of Chardonnay, California winemaking and how Americans enjoy wine, Wine Enthusiast is proud to name Kendall-Jackson Winery as its American Winery of the Year. —Virginie Boone

Source: http://www.winemag.com/gallery/wine-enthusiasts-2017-wine-star-award-winners/#gallery-carousel-8

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Kenda

Jim Clerkin of Moët Hennessy North America

The head of Moët Hennessy North America is a humble force for growth and change across the wine and spirits industry, and beyond.

Some individuals who achieve tremendous success in their professional lives develop egos just as prodigious.

Jim Clerkin has never fallen into that trap. For him, humility, grace and goodwill have always been paramount.

Clerkin is not just president and CEO of Moët Hennessy North America. He also devotes his energy to a multitude of professional and charitable organizations, mentors many employees and youth, and is always generous with his time.

“Jim Clerkin has made an indelible mark on the wine and spirits industry,” says Wayne Chaplin, president and CEO of Southern Wine & Spirits, who was Wine Enthusiast’s Person of the Year in 2016. “His success can not only be attributed to his great talent and leadership, but also to his integrity, humility and commitment to helping everyone he works with reach their full potential. I consider it a great pleasure and honor to get to work with him and his team.”

Arguably, the best trait of a leader is embracing teamwork. This is a concept that Clerkin may take to the extreme.

When informed by Wine Enthusiast that he’d be honored as its 2017 Person of the Year, Clerkin dished off credit deftly.

“What an extraordinary honor this is,” says Clerkin. “There’s no chance I’d get that consideration without the great people I work with. I also feel very fortunate to represent some of the most iconic brands in the world. I truly see my role as being a caretaker, to protect the heritage and honor the pioneering spirit, and ensuring I leave them in a better place than I found them.”

That won’t be a problem.

Clerkin oversees a staff of 377 people. He’s running the North American region for iconic global brands like Champagnes Dom Pérignon, Krug, Moët & Chandon, Ruinart and Veuve Clicquot; Hennessy Cognac; Scotch whiskies Ardbeg and Glenmorangie; Belvedere vodka and more.

Also included in the prestigious portfolio are wineries like Cloudy Bay, Domaine Chandon and Newton Vineyard. Recent expansion has added superpremium spirits Tequila Volcán De Mi Tierra, as well as newcomer Woodinville WhiskeyCompany, acquired in July.

Clerkin was born in 1954 on a farm in the village of Rostrevor, in County Down, Northern Ireland. The oldest of nine children, Clerkin learned the value of family, friendship and hard work from an early age.

“My parents taught me that family really matters most of all,” he says. “I like to think I’m a great team player, and that I motivate very different people with very different styles to come together and harness energy as one team for a common goal. At Moët Hennessy, we continuously cultivate diversity and inclusive engagement through education, exposure and experiences.”

He credits his father as his first and most important mentor. As someone who appreciated Hennessy, and enjoyed it mixed with ginger ale and a single ice cube, Jim learned from him about the history of the Hennessy family, who left Cork in the mid-1700s to seek their fortunes overseas.

In 2015, Hennessy celebrated its 250th anniversary.

“A great milestone,” says Clerkin. “The brand has doubled its sales in the past five years. Last year, Hennessy VS crossed the three-million-cases mark and still grew 20 percent, a record for the brand. And not just VS, but VSOP, Hennessy Black and XO are also performing very well.”

Clerkin began his career with Guinness in 1976. He advanced quickly, joining its board of directors at age 36.

In 1994, Grand Metropolitan recruited Clerkin to lead its wines and spirits division in Ireland. Three years later, the company merged with Guinness to form Diageo, and he was promoted to executive vice president as well as president of its Western U.S. wine and spirits division.

In 2003, he joined Allied Domecq as president for North America and Canada, and after its acquisition by Pernod Ricard and Jim Beam, he was appointed CEO of The Jim Beam Company for Canada, Mexico and the U.S.

Moët Hennessy (the wine, Champagne and spirits division of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton) named Clerkin its executive vice president and chief operating officer in 2008. Shortly after, he became CEO and president of Moët Hennessy USA. Most recently, Clerkin’s responsibilities expanded to include Mexico and Canada.

Clerkin takes much pride in the success of his staff, where the departments work alongside dedicated teams for areas such as business intelligence, digital, new business and strategic marketing.

While respecting the history and tradition of their brands, Moët Hennessy’s Champagne houses continue to strive for innovation, seizing creative opportunities to further the art of winemaking. Recent innovations include Moët Ice Impérial, the first Champagne designed to be poured over ice, and a Clicquot line extension called Rich, designed to be served like a cocktail.

“We’ve made Champagne less formal and more approachable and, as a consequence, we are growing in a steady, longer-term fashion.” he says.

Competition from other sparkling wines has increased in recent years, notably Prosecco. Clerkin embraces the challenge. “I take my hat off to competitors who have been innovative with packaging,” he says. “We see everybody, at any price point, as competitors. I would argue that this has inspired us to work harder at growing Champagne.

“I will take some credit, with my team, to talk about Chandon. This year we will sell six million bottles for the first time ever in America. A lot has to do with one-off special editions that have been remarkably successful. And I am excited for what will be coming in 2018.”

According to LVMH interim financial reports, highlights for the first half of 2017 include their Champagne sales volume up eight percent and a “very good first half” for Hennessy, “driven in particular by United States, where demand continued to rise.”

Overall, global profits in Wines & Spirits were up 21 percent and revenues were up 12 percent, with Europe and the United States particularly dynamic regions.

Clerkin also finds time to serve on several industry groups. Notably, he’s chairman of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS).

“Jim Clerkin is a key leader in our sector promoting modernization, innovation and social responsibility,” says Kraig R. Naasz, president and CEO of DISCUS. “Jim has helped guide us at the Distilled Spirits Council as our chair and active member of the board, where he has presided over an extended period of growth in market share and several significant public policy victories.”

The UJA-Federation of New York’s Wine & Spirits Division bestowed upon Clerkin its Samuel Bronfman Memorial Award after he helped raise a record-breaking $775,000 for the organization. He supported the grand opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, where Hennessy, Belvedere and Moët & Chandon were featured and served.

A U.S. citizen, he retains a connection to his roots. Clerkin is involved in organizations like Irish America, Northern Ireland Connection and Co-operation Ireland, a nonprofit that promotes peace and a sustained reconciliation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which he serves as chairman.

Clerkin’s focus there, as in much of his charity work, is on youth leadership programs. It’s a way to pay back mentors like his father that helped pave his way. He’s also a board member at the Royal Academy America, a nonprofit that promotes the arts, as well as a supporter of the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City.

For his vast contributions to the wine and spirits industry, as well as his philanthropy, generosity and character, Wine Enthusiast is proud to honor Jim Clerkin as its 2017 Person of the Year. —Paul Gregutt

Bob Trinchero, Chairman Emeritus, Trinchero Family Estates (left) and Roger Trinchero, Chairman of the Board, Trinchero Family Estates (right)

Louis “Bob” Trinchero and Roger Trinchero are well known and respected in the wine business for their giant California wine brands that include Ménage à Trois and Sutter Home. However, they’re perhaps even more respected by their employees and community members, a tribute that stems from lessons learned long before their family winery hit the big time.

Bob and Roger were children in 1947 when their father and uncle bought the Sutter Home winery in St. Helena, California, and moved the family from New York City to Napa Valley. Bob, 10 years older than Roger, became involved immediately in winemaking at the most basic level. Roger and their sister, Vera Trinchero Torres, would follow into family business when they were old enough.

Located on Main Street in St. Helena, Sutter Home was a small operation at the outset. In those early days, it sold 65 percent of its production direct to locals and passersby. That hands-on experience inspired the brothers later to take care of their employees as if they were family members.

“Since Roger and I and the family have worn all the hats, we were appreciative of our employees who were doing the work we once did,” says Bob. “We thought to ourselves if they are going to dedicate 20 or 30 years of their lives to our family, we should treat them right.”

The family instituted a profit-sharing program for employees many years ago.

“Today we have one of the best 401(k) plans in the industry, and we continue to contribute to the plan,” says Roger, the chairman of the board for the wholly owned and operated family company, Trinchero Family Estates (TFE). Bob serves as chairman emeritus.

Not only do the brothers invest in their employees, but they’re also extremely active in supporting their local communities. TFE created a Family in Need Fund that uses revenue from aggressive recycling efforts to help employees with unexpected crises like the Lake County wildfire in 2015. OLE Health, a community clinic in Napa, has received $2 million from the family.

“The Trinchero family’s wineries are places everyone wants to work,” says United States Representative Mike Thompson, Democrat of California, whose Congressional district includes Napa Valley. “They treat their employees like family, and their generosity to our community is second to none. Bob and Roger embody an incredible sense of loyalty, respect and ethics, and they’ve made it part of their business plan. I admire them more than I can express in words.”

Bob became winemaker in 1958, while beginning in the 1980s, Roger developed a world-class sales and marketing team and established national distribution for fast-growing Sutter Home White Zinfandel. The winery became America’s leading varietal wine producer.

Bob and his winemaking team mastered production and quality control on a massive scale. At the same time, Roger and his staff introduced a series of breakthrough packaging innovations and marketing programs that included single-serve varietals, a non-cork closure and award-winning advertising and promotions.

Today, TFE has 8,000 acres of vineyards and produces 17 million cases across 44 American brands like Trinchero Napa Valley, Napa Cellars, Terra d’Oro and Trinity Oaks. The company also markets numerous domestic brands that include Joel Gott Wines and Charles & Charles, imports wines from Australia and Chile, and has a growing spirits portfolio.

Despite all that branding and sales success, Roger says, “What Bob and I take the most pride in is that we’ve been able to recognize talent and hire it.” They mention standouts that include current CEO Bob Torkelson and longtime executives Jim Huntsinger and Hal Huffsmith.

Bob and Roger also take pride that they’ve provided consumers with high-quality, reasonably priced wines for their entire careers. They never thought they should dictate what people should drink, but as Roger says, “We always tried to see where the market was going, and make available to the consumer regardless of their taste, something that they will enjoy.”

A perfect example of this was the accidental invention of a pink, lightly sweet Zinfandel.

“We made this wine, and all of a sudden everyone wanted it, so we made more,” says Bob simply.

By always being able to serve such needs and meet many other challenges, these brothers played a critical role in the transformation of America into the world’s biggest wine-consuming country.

For these accomplishments and their dedication to prioritizing their employees and community, Wine Enthusiastis proud to honor Bob and Roger Trinchero with its Lifetime Achievement Award. —Jim Gordon

Nicolaus ‘Nicky’ Hahn of Smith and Hook

A visionary who elevated Monterey County wine to new heights.

When Nicolaus “Nicky” Hahn bought Smith & Hook Vineyardin California’s Monterey County almost 40 years ago, the region’s reputation for wine was in the dregs.

“There I was at almost age 50 and had no clue what the industry was about—I’d never sold a bottle of wine in my life,” says Hahn, who was told categorically by international distributors that Monterey would never excel in wine. “The reputation was such that somebody had to do something about it.”

He quickly worked to reset the narrative, most critically with the creation of the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation in 1991.

“Thirty years later, we are recognized as one of the great growing regions,” says Hahn, whose Hahn Family Wines now produces more than 400,000 cases annually and distributes to all 50 states and 20 countries. “Depending on the context, you can place my name up with Piero Antinori. Who would ever have thought that was feasible? I think I am correct in calling myself the black swan of the American wine industry.”

Hahn’s early life reads like a midcentury novel. His father was a Jewish banker in Frankfurt, Germany, and they fled the Nazis to Switzerland, where Nicky was born in 1936. From there, it was on to England (where he remembers air raid drills), Spain, Portugal, Cuba (by banana boat) and Los Angeles. He then attended boarding school back in Switzerland, before heading to university in Munich to study economics like his father.

Then came brokerage jobs in Paris, London and New York City, where Chase Manhattan Bank trained him as a credit analyst. He ventured back to Switzerland, where he started his own firm and took over as chair of Computer Associates, which grew to be one of the largest software firms on the planet.

By the late 1970s, Hahn hunted for a legacy project. His dad didn’t drink much, but it was Haut-Brion when he did, and the younger Hahn remembers his own wine epiphany.

“It was Montrachet, and that’s when I learned that there is more than one way to get into heaven,” he says.

His search to own a piece of that heaven led him to Monterey, where in 1979, he bought Smith & Hook Vineyard as it slipped toward foreclosure.

“It was a mistake,” says Hahn. “It was the beginning of a whole bunch of headaches, and I had to work my way through them.”

He learned that much of Monterey was planted to varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon that made no sense for its chilly, windy climate. Much appeared to be planted as tax write-offs.

“If you have the wrong varietal, in the wrong place, planted for the wrong reasons, you’ve got a problem on your hands,” says Hahn.

So with moral support from the late Rick Smith and a few other vintners, Hahn spearheaded the late-1980s push to establish the Santa Lucia Highlands as a cool-climate region perfect for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

“Then things started to look up, because we didn’t have to fight a reputation that was, by the way, totally deserved,” says Hahn. The appellation is now home to iconic sites like Pisoni Vineyard, Garys’ Vineyard and Sleepy Hollow Vineyard.

Hahn, however, was late to re-plant his Cab-dominated property to Pinot Noir. He undertook that in the early 2000s, when they began ripping out 650 acres of the Santa Lucia Highlands property and planted most to the Burgundian variety.

“We did everything to make my piggy bank squeaky, and now we are known as a Pinot house,” says Hahn, who sells his top-end wines under the Lucienne brand.

He rebuilt Smith & Hook into a regionally sourced, affordable Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux-style blend powerhouse, now up to about 70,000 annual cases. “That’s the nearest we have to a dream wine,” says Hahn.

Experimentation and replanting projects continue, including recent tests of massal clonal field blends, and Hahn’s acreage has grown to more than 1,100 around the Central Coast. He was also an early adopter of the Sustainability in Practice program, which upholds stringent environmental and labor standards.

“I’d like to be known as a fair employer, and if you look at our employee list, many of them have been with us forever,” says Hahn.His colleagues are proud of Hahn.

“With Nicky’s intellectual and financial capabilities, he could have succeeded at anything he put his mind to,” says Jerry Lohr, founder of J. Lohr Vineyards & W ines, who was honored by Wine Enthusiast as its American Wine Legend in 2016. “I am so pleased that he decided to focus so much energy on his winery in Monterey, which played an important role in helping to put Monterey wines on the map.”

For his countless contributions to Monterey and, by extension, the wine industry as a whole, Wine Enthusiastnames Nicolaus “Nicky” Hahn as its 2017 American Wine Pioneer. —Matt Kettmann

Christophe Baron of Cayuse

A pioneer grows in the Pacific Northwest.

Do not call Christophe Baron, of Walla Walla Valley’s Cayuse Vineyards, a winemaker. “I cannot stand the word ‘winemaker,’ ” says Baron, his French accent giving the words a distinctive flair. “At Cayuse, there is no winemaker. At Cayuse, there is a vigneron.”

In a region where many purchase grapes to make wines, that distinction deserves merit.

“Buying grapes, you can get by, but it’s never going to make the best wine in the world,” says Baron, who is as opinionated and outspoken as he is playful. “That’s impossible. You have to tend your own vines. That’s what a vigneron does.”

Baron’s roots as a winegrower trace back to the village of Charly-sur-Marn in the Champagne region of France, where his family has tended vineyards since 1677. Rather than follow his father’s footsteps at the family vineyard—“I’m way too independent,” he says—Baron came to the U.S. in 1996 with the goal to plant a vineyard in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

On the way, a friend showed him an ancestral riverbed strewn with cobblestone on the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley.

Reminded of the pudding stones of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Baron changed plans and decided to plant a vineyard in an area where no one had grown wine grapes in generations.

“I knew I had something special in front of me,” says Baron.

From the start of Cayuse Vineyards, Baron has focused on Syrah, a variety that had been introduced into the Pacific Northwest just 10 years earlier. He then planted a series of vineyards in the region that were devoted largely to craft numerous vineyard-designated Syrahs, a novel concept in the area at the time.

Baron’s success, first at Cayuse Vineyards and later with other projects that include No Girls, Horsepower Vineyards and, most recently, Hors Catégorie, has been otherworldly. He’s produced more than 50 wines rated at 95 points or above by Wine Enthusiast, including two with 100-point scores. The wines are so successful and so limited (production at Cayuse is a scant 4,500 cases) that there’s a seven-year waiting list to purchase them.

“The Cayuse wines are the top of the top in terms of quality,” says Chris Tanghe MS, also honored by Wine Enthusiast this year as its Sommelier of the Year. “As a variety for the state and for the industry, Christophe has brought to the table a specific expression of Syrah. . .The styles [of wines from the area] are texturally very interesting and really not replicated anywhere else on the planet.”

Indeed, the earthy, savory, mineral quality that this terroir creates has drawn a rush of growers and winemakers to the area. In 2015, the area was established as its own federally approved winegrowing region, the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater, a subappellation of the Walla Walla Valley.

Baron’s wines have not just raised the profile of Northwest Syrah, but helped establish the Walla Walla Valley as a premier winegrowing region.

Baron continues to innovate, as he experiments with trellising techniques, row spacing and horse plowing. Most recently, he has begun to explore another region of the Walla Walla Valley near the North Fork of the Walla Walla River with his Hors Catégorie project. The first wine was released this earlier year.

“You’ve got to be curious when you’re a vigneron,” says Baron. “It’s very important to take risks.”

As much as he may hate the label of “winemaker,” for the many risks taken, the subsequent rewards, and his contributions to the advancement of an entire winegrowing region, Wine Enthusiast names Christophe Baron its Winemaker of the Year. —Sean P. Sullivan

Roger Nabedian of E. & J. Gallo Winery

The visionary who moves E. & J. Gallo, the world’s largest winery, forward.

When E. & J. Gallo Winery brought on Roger Nabedian in 1986 as a neophyte sales and marketing hire, it was a big boom period for boutique wineries and high-end bottlings. Premium-priced dry, varietal wines in 750-ml bottles were growing fast. But Gallo enjoyed success with a focus on accessible, easy-drinking table wines in magnums and gallon jugs, as well as inexpensive fortified and sweet wines.

Today, of course, E. & J. Gallo produces and imports numerous premium and superpremium wines, and owns highly regarded wineries and vineyards in Napa, Sonoma and Washington State. The journey from its Hearty Burgundy brand to estate-grown Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon has been monumental. No one outside the Gallo family has had a bigger hand in that transformation than Nabedian, the senior vice president and general manager of the company’s premium wine division.

“Roger’s dedication and passion for the premium and luxury wine business has been a significant part of E. & J. Gallo Winery’s strategic direction into this sector,” says distributor David C. Drucker of Empire Merchants in New York City.

“One needs to look no further than the past few acquisitions and partnerships that the Gallo winery has made to see Roger’s fingerprints and incredible vision.”

None of this was on Nabedian’s mind when he graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a B.A. in chemistry. At that time, he wanted to be a doctor.

“I got into the wine business totally by accident,” says Nabedian. It was a change that would afford him tremendous success.

Nabedian has spent his entire career with Gallo, and was put in charge of premium wines in 2005. Since then, he’s led the acquisition and integration of vineyards, wineries and brands that include Talbott Vineyards, William Hill Estate Winery, Columbia Winery, J Vineyards & Winery, The Ranch Winery and Orin Swift Cellars.

In March 2017, Nabedian completed one of Gallo’s most historic acquisitions: The purchase of the iconic Stagecoach Vineyard. A 1,300-acre hillside vineyard located in Napa Valley’s Pritchard Hill region and Atlas Peak appellation, it is also the largest contiguous vineyard in Napa Valley, with more than 600 acres planted to vines. The acquisition was a bold move, but one that would ensure the company’s footprint in Napa for many generations to come.

His division encompasses 42 brands produced at 34 wineries around the world, which includes the new LUX Wines portfolio that currently imports classic Italian brands from iconic appellations. The division represents more than 24,000 acres of land, of which 8,500 acres are under vine.

“I am very fortunate to be working at Gallo,” he says. “I have many friends that along their paths have changed jobs every five or 10 years to be able to grow. But Gallo has afforded me the opportunity to have so many varied experiences and responsibilities in my daily work without changing my business card. I’m just a lucky kid that that happened for me.”

Those around Nabedian describe him as insightful, intelligent, modest, generous with his time and a tough but straightforward negotiator.

“I felt like, with Roger, there was no such thing as a stupid question,” says Mike Forrester, Gallo’s western region managing director, who reported to Nabedian for five years. “His big saying is, ‘Never fail in silence.’ In other words, ask for help. It’s O.K. I think he learned a lot from Joe Gallo and the other senior executives. He watched and incorporated those traits, but he just did it faster than anybody else.”

Robert Nicholson, founder of International Wine Associates, has represented the sellers of brands and properties that Nabedian acquired for Gallo, such as Talbott Vineyards and, most recently, the Germain-Robin luxury California brandy.

“Roger is the real deal,” says Nicholson. “He frankly is the architect of the Gallos’ drive to be the long-term player in the U.S. premium and superpremium wine business. And when the Gallos are building business in the premium sector, it’s good for everyone.”

In recognition of his many contributions to the world’s largest family-owned winery and the growth of the premium wine sector, Wine Enthusiast is delighted to award Roger Nabedian as its Wine Executive of the Year. —Jim Gordon

Bruce Hunter of Shaw-Ross International Importers

This trailblazer keeps Shaw-Ross International Importers ahead of the curve.

Innovation comes in many forms. For Bruce Hunter, managing director of Shaw-Ross International Importers, it begins with the ability to spot trends and problems. It ends with solutions that help sell hundreds of thousands of cases of wine.

“Part of my philosophy is if everything you do is in your comfort level, then you don’t go anywhere,” says Hunter. And this man, who worked in his father’s wine and liquor shop in a New York City suburb “delivering orders in the rain, snow—nothing stopped me from my appointed rounds,” wanted to go somewhere.

So he went to work for Almaden Vineyards, where he became the New York representative and gained experience pounding the pavement. His territory ranged from small corner stores bedecked with bulletproof glass to Manhattan’s white tablecloth restaurants.

“It was great experience,” he says. Along the way, he realized that wine had become his foremost passion.

“You have to believe in the product, because if you don’t believe in a product, you’re not going to be able to sell it,” says Hunter.

After a few years, Hunter headed west to join Parrott & Company, a California venture then owned by the Martini and Wente families. He would soon rise to become president of the marketing and national sales company that represented the two families’ wines, as well as other wineries, imports and spirits brands, a role he held for 10 years.

Hunter’s career with Shaw-Ross International Importers followed. He returned to the East Coast with not just his passion, but the tips and skills learned along the way.

Take Château d’Esclans Whispering Angel rosé, for example.

He muses that it would be great “…to say I spotted the rosé trend 10 years ago, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate.” Instead, he simply met with Château d’Esclans’ owner, Sacha Lichine, who had his own idea of how he wanted to evolve the winery’s reputation.

“Now, Sacha is a winemaker, but he is also a businessperson,” says Hunter. “And he wanted to make a serious wine, a serious rosé, not a White Zinfandel wannabe.”

Hunter and his team took 1,500 cases of the brand’s wines “to the right places, to the Hamptons, to Beverly Hills, to the right areas, to the right people and the right events. We kept our prices right. We kept our marketing philosophy. We never wavered from it. We never wavered in our pricing.

“If it’s going to be serious, it has to have a chance at being successful.”

That was 10 years ago. In 2017, Whispering Angel was on track to sell 300,000 cases, and Hunter predicts it will sell 400,000 cases in 2018. The brand’s other rosés, Rock Angel, Les Clans, Esclans and Garrus, also enjoy impressive sales and consumer demand.

His wife used to consider him crazy to spend a weekend visiting retailers to “just look around at the prices and the shelves and what people are looking at,” he says. “What are they hovering around? What are they buying? What’s the price point they are buying? To me, that’s fun.”

Sometimes, being an innovator means being a problem-solver. When Shaw-Ross took on Gekkeikan sake two years ago, Hunter visited many Japanese restaurants to see what people drank with sushi. He noticed that it wasn’t often sake. When he asked the owners, many believed it was because the sake was typically served warm.

“I asked how do you drink sake in Japan, and they said they drink it chilled,” says Hunter. “So we came back with an idea. Gekkeikan is a premium sake, so serve it chilled and drink it out of wine glass. The result? We’re selling 500,000 cases.”

The company’s current portfolio of wine, spirits and sake includes other iconic brands, like Marquès de Riscal from Spain and Viña San Pedro from Chile. Recent additions to their portfolio, which Hunter helped to secure in 2017, include the Bordeaux brand Mouton-Cadet and Pays d’Oc varietally labeled wines of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, as well as Italian wines from Frescobaldi and Danzante.

Another part of his philosophy is something he learned from his father. “He told me ‘Leadership is not about being great. It’s about enabling others to be great.’ And I have a great team of people, because behind every great brand is a great team.”

For his numerous accomplishments and continued success to grow business by staying in-tune with the current U.S. wine landscape and market demands, Wine Enthusiast is happy to name Bruce Hunter as its Innovator of the Year. —Leslie Gevirtz

ll-Jackson Winery

The iconic Sonoma estate produces the top-selling wine in America today.

The meteoric rise of California Chardonnay over the last several decades has much to do with one producer, Kendall-Jackson, and one wine, Vintner’s Reserve.

Kendall-Jackson has a lot to do with the growth and collective love for Chardonnay.

In 1992, Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay became the country’s number one Chardonnay in sales. In 2014, it became the top-selling wine in America.

Today, Vintner’s Reserve is 100-percent coastal Chardonnay, 95-percent barrel fermented in up to 1,000 small lots, where the lees is hand-stirred once a month.