Jed Steele

Born in New York, Jed, the youngest of five siblings, moved with his parents to San Francisco in 1950 where he grew up. His father Robert was a published historian and newspaperman. Jed's middle name Tecumseh was his father's homage to the Shawnee chief, whom he admired and wrote about. and graduated in 1967 with a degree in psychology. == Career ==

In 1968, he interned for a few months in the cellar of Stony Hill Vineyard in Napa Valley, owned by Fred and Eleanor McCrea, who were friends of his parents, living with writer M. F. K. Fisher. Steele went on to earn a MS in enology at UC Davis in 1974. He then joined Edmeades Winery in Anderson Valley, where he eventually led viticulture and winemaking operations for eight years. Kendall-Jackson Fetzer winemaker Paul Dolan urged Steele to meet attorney Jess Jackson, who owned vineyards in the Lakeport area of Lake County, California, and wanted to start his own winery (Jackson had produced wine himself for a few vintages under the Chateau du Lac label, but largely as a hobby). Steele was hired as winemaker for Kendall-Jackson (K-J) in 1982. The first Chardonnay vintage, assembled from grapes from Lake County, but also Sonoma, Monterey and Santa Barbara counties, became stuck in fermentation. The resulting somewhat off-dry wine was bottled, and became an instant sensation. After bottles were sent by a Sacramento wine buyer to the Reagan White House in 1984, it became the First Lady's favorite, and the K-J Chardonnay was soon nicknamed "Nancy's wine" by San Francisco Chronicle's columnist Herb Caen. While the Chardonnay remained the "bread-and-butter wine" for K-J, its Vintner's Reserve affordably priced in 1986 at , Steele also made Sauvignon blanc, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel wines, and eventually expanded to Merlot and Muscat canelli as well. During Steele's tenure, Kendall-Jackson's annual case production soared from 35,000 in 1982 to more than 700,000 in 1991. Frustrated by the corporate nature his job had taken, he decided to leave. In what was described as an amicable split, Jackson agreed on a severance of , plus $10,000 a month while Steele trained his successor. In May 1991, Jackson fired Steele, accusing him of stealing "trade secrets". The winemaker sued his former employer for the remnant of his $275,000 severance package, and Jackson countersued. The trial, held in Lake County Superior Court in May 1992, resulted in a partial win for Jackson, as Judge John Golden ruled that a winemaking process or formula do constitute a trade secret. The controversial ruling was largely decried in the wine industry. In June 1993, Steele dropped the appeal he had planned to file. Steele Wines In 1991, Steele started his own eponymous label, first producing in a Lower Lake facility in Lake County. He began a 17-year consulting relationship with Chateau Ste. Michelle in Woodinville, Washington, and also consulted for Fess Parker Winery in Los Olivos, in Santa Barbara County (he continued producing several different Chardonnay wines under his different labels in subsequent years, including from some of those original vineyards). Steele's newly found independence also allowed him to experiment with new varieties, such as Pinot noir, which he first made for the 1991 vintage. In 1996, Steele acquired the former Konocti Winery in Lakeport, along State Highway 29, allowing him to consolidate production, which until then was spread out across different facilities. At the time, Steele planned to cut production and hover around 15,000 cases a year. The new owner originally phased out Steele's brands (except Shooting Star) from its portfolio, but relaunched the Steele Wines label in 2025. == Winemaking style and legacy ==

The inaugural Chardonnay vintage Jed Steele bottled for Kendall-Jackson was a game-changer in the American wine market, where the best-selling and most planted white variety until then was Sauvignon blanc. California Chardonnay, which had already seen a rising popularity following the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 and the advocacy of personalities like winemaker David Ramey or wine writer Frank Prial, quickly overtook and by the early 1990s, it had become the most popular white wine in the U.S. In 2005, Kendall-Jackson's Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay was the most frequently ordered wine on American restaurant lists. According to Wine Spectator, it was "the most popular Chardonnay sold in America from 1992 to 2022 by value". Jed Steele's wines have been described as "bold", and he prized consumer tastes, and insisted on making affordable wines expressing the personality of the vineyard they stemmed from. and produced Black Bubbles, an Australian-style sparkling Syrah, as well as port-style wines from estate grapes. Napa Valley's winegrower Andy Beckstoffer credits Jed Steele with showing him the viticultural potential of Lake County, in particular its Red Hills region. Beckstoffer ended up acquiring hundreds of acres through multiple transactions, becoming himself an advocate for Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the rich volcanic soil characterizing the appellation. == Personal life==

Jed Steele married Ann Stenerson in July 1973 in Spokane, Washington, with whom he had two children, Quincy and Mendocino. He later married Marie Beery, at the time Kendall-Jackson's bookkeeper, with whom he moved to Lake County. They divorced in the early 1990s. In his later years, Jed Steele shared his time between his homes in Kelseyville, Jacksonville and Montana with his partner Paula Doran. He died of bladder cancer on October 31, 2025. == References ==