Josh Jensen, who, after a deliberate quest in the 1970s to find the perfect California location to grow the pinot noir grape, became the first producer of consistently excellent American pinot noir through his Calera Wine Company, establishing a new Generation of West European Coast winemakers passed away on Saturday at his home in San Francisco. He was 78.
The cause was multiple health problems, his daughter Silvie Jensen said.
Good American pinot noir was rarely seen in 1972 when Mr. Jensen, in love with Burgundy in France, the source of the world’s great pinot noirs and chardonnays, began producing his own version in California. With a few exceptions, most American pinot noir at the time was simple and fruity at best; more often it was braised stuff from the hot Central Valley.
But Mr. Jensen had a different idea. Having worked in Burgundy for a short time, he saw firsthand the affinity of pinot noir for limestone, the foundation of the region. He was convinced that if he could find limestone in California, where it was rare, he could make great wines with the complexity and ability to age that are typical of good Burgundy.
It took him a solid two years of monastic devotion – scouring geological maps and mining surveys, scouring the countryside in search of the combination of limestone and mild climate that could give him the great wine he had envisioned.
In 1974, he found his place 2,200 feet high on the remote slopes of Mount Harlan in the Gabilan Range in San Benito County, two hours southeast of San Francisco. Don’t mind the isolation, or the lack of paved roads, electricity, and running water, or the fact that, as Mr. Jensen later put it, the site was “a Frisbee throw” from the San Andreas Fault. His vision surpassed the potential pitfalls.
He bought the plot, on which he found a well-preserved old lime kiln. Shortly after, living in a trailer with his wife, Jeanne Newman, and her small child, he began planting his first three vineyards – Jensen (named after his father), Selleck (for a mentor), and Reed (for an investor ) – circumscribing the mountain, each with different sun exposures. In 1975 Calera Wine Company was born, named after the Spanish word for lime kiln.
The first small crop arrived in 1978, a year after Mr. Jensen had bought additional land 300 yards down the mountain to build a winery, a makeshift facility largely exposed to the elements.
“Calera’s isolation was striking,” says Ted Lemon, who briefly dated Mr. Jensen worked before moving to Burgundy and founding Littorai in Sonoma County, California, where he continues to make remarkable pinot noirs and chardonnays. “There was no wine community, no one on the road to borrow equipment if something broke. But that also added to the sense of adventure and the pioneering spirit.”
Contrary to common California methods, Mr. Jensen used the environmental yeast on the grapes for fermentation rather than inoculating the grapes with commercial yeast. He didn’t filter the wines. Early on, he had to supplement his own production by buying zinfandel grapes so that he had enough wine to sell to pay the bills.
Soon, in the mid-eighties, the Calera pinot noirs began to be known. Classically styled in the Burgundian tradition, not easy to enjoy young yet structured to age well, with the intense fruit flavors emanating from the California sun.
Each of the vineyards seemed to offer its own unique expression. Most importantly, the Calera pinot noirs were consistently good year after year, unlike the one-off pinot noir triumphs that had occasionally provoked other producers but were unable to reproduce.
Over time, Mr Jensen added three more vineyards, Mills, Ryan and de Villiers, to the original 24 hectares, planted with pinot noir, chardonnay, aligoté and viognier. The vineyards of Calera eventually covered 85 hectares.
“It’s easy to forget how few prominent pinot noir producers there were in California in the 1980s and how few were able to maintain and improve the quality in the decades that followed,” said Mr. lemon. “Calara did. In that alone, Josh has delivered an extraordinary performance.”
Mr. Jensen didn’t just make exceptional wines. Its success inspired others to try pinot noir. New vineyards were soon planted in other remote areas of California, such as the Sonoma Coast, Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Santa Rita Hills, in the western extremities of Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County. But no one else ventured to Mount Harlan, which was approved by the federal government as a U.S. winegrowing region in 1990.
“Josh’s complete dedication and passion to push everything to the limit to achieve quality became an inspiration to many who followed,” said Mr. lemon. “Few had the courage to go to such an intimidating, remote location, but many were inspired by his work.”
Jonathan Eddy Jensen was born on February 11, 1944 in Seattle to Dr. Stephen Jensen, a dentist, and Jasmine (Eddy) Jensen, a homemaker. He grew up in Orinda, California, where he was nicknamed Josh; the nickname stuck. He later legally changed his name to Josh Edison Jensen, taking his middle name from the inventor, with whom he shared a birthday.
He graduated from Yale University, where he majored in history and rowing crew. He then spent two years at New College at the University of Oxford in England, where he obtained a master’s degree in anthropology and continued to row. In 1967 he took part in a race in which Oxford defeated the arch-rival Cambridge.
Mr. Jensen had been introduced to wine through a friend of his father’s. After graduating, he went to France in 1970 to cultivate the harvest at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the famous Burgundian estate in Vosne-Romanée. He fell in love with Burgundy and spent parts of the following years there, including Domaine Dujac, then a fledgling estate in Morey-St.-Denis and now one of the region’s most esteemed producers.
When not working in Burgundy, his son, Duggan, said he criss-crossed Europe and the Middle East in an old Volkswagen bus, often sleeping in the back, a taste of his California yacht.
Mr. Jensen’s marriage to Mrs. Newman ended in divorce. In addition to his son and daughter Silvie, he leaves behind another daughter, Chloe Jensen; a stepdaughter, Melissa Jensen; two sisters, Thea Engesser and Stephenie Ward; and five grandchildren.
Calera pinot noirs were considered some of America’s best in the 1990s and 2000s. Mr. Jensen’s license plate read ‘Mr Pinot’, as he had been nicknamed in Burgundy, where he was considered an honorary Burgundian. He often returned there to cycle with his friends.
Mr. Jensen was a mentor to younger pinot noir producers such as Andy Peay, an owner of Peay Vineyards on the Sonoma Coast.
“He was a lover not only of pinot noir, but of books, clothes, culture and chatter – that’s what drew me to him,” said Mr. Peay Monday. “He was determined, open-minded and didn’t push his agenda on you.”
When pinot noir became popular in the United States in the late 1990s, the prevailing style began to change. Instead of the tense, structured yet understated wines Mr. Jensen favored, critics praised plush, powerfully fruity pinot noirs with a high alcohol content. Mr. Jensen was not a fan.
“These big, top-heavy fruit bombs don’t get more intense, but softer and slacker,” he said in 2009.
Nevertheless, the alcohol content of his own wines started to rise over time, which he attributed to climate change and drought.
In 2017, Mr. Jensen, whose children were not interested in continuing his work on Mount Harlan, sold Calera to Duckhorn Portfolio, which owns several prominent California wineries.
Recently dubbed “the Werner Herzog of winemakers” by California winemaker Randall Grahm, Mr. Jensen never wavered in his dedication to the combination of limestone and pinot noir.
“I am a true believer,” he said.