John Kerr Wines

John Kerr Wines
P.O. Box 7539
Santa Maria, California
USA 93456
Phone: (805) 688-5337
http://jkerrwines.com/index.htm

Contact: John Kerr
Email: [email protected]

Born in Oakland, California in 1949 to a career Navy Officer, John spent his childhood moving around the country to various naval air bases. Drafted into the Army in 1969 while attending junior college, John spent the next two years in Vietnam as a helicopter weapons specialist and door gunner. He began his winemaking career at Brookside Winery in Ventura, California in 1972 shortly after returning home as a decorated veteran. John planted vines and worked in the tasting room at Brookside.
Nearly four years were spent at Brookside facilities until the family owned operation was sold and reorganized. John then moved to Santa Barbara where he became one of the top selling salesman for a large stereo chain store while selling wine part time.In 1980 John moved to Monterey County and began seriously pursuing a winemaking career. He worked at Chalone and Jekel wineries before spending four years at Ventana Vineyards and Winery where he was in charge of production.

In 1984 he returned to Santa Barbara County where he became an independent consulting winemaker, assisting Babcock Winery in their first crush, producing seven varietals that were all awarded in competitions. He assisted Brander and Houtz wineries, and was the winemaker at Houtz for four years. Working at several wineries at once, John also began working for Byron Winery in 1986.

1986 is the year of the first J. Kerr crush. Concentrating on Chardonnay, which is the mainstay of J. Kerr Wines, John began making reds in 1988 with a Syrah.

In 1990 Byron became a R.J. Mondavi subsidiary and John took the position of assistant winemaker as an employee, rather than consulting winemaker, and continued to make his own label of wine on the side. Production of J. Kerr expanded from 100 cases of Chardonnay in 1986 to about 1500 cases of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in 1991.
In 1995 John went to work for the Firestone family as the winemaker at Carey Cellars. At that time his production program was folded into the Carey program as a long term relationship was planned. His wines in bulk and bottle were labeled (and bottled) as Curtis wines with the name change of the facility. The Firestone family sold the Carey, now Curtis, facility in the spring of 1997 to William Foley. John continued on as the winemaker until the spring of 1998 when he decided to focus on his own singular wine production.

Winemaker: John Kerr

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