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People
SCOTT HAWLEY
WINEMAKER
Scott Hawley was brought on board to make the wine beginning with the 2005 inaugural release. He is a graduate of the Enology program at California State University, Fresno.
Following graduation Scott went to work for Fetzer Vineyards in Mendocino County where he was named Brown Forman Beverages Worldwide International Winemaker of the Year.
He moved to Paso Robles in 2000 to make the wines for the Fetzer Five Rivers brand following a harvest in Australia and trips through Burgundy and the Rhône Valley.
The lure of smaller production premium wines took him to Summerwood Winery in 2001 where he produced some of Paso Robles’ finest Bordeaux and Rhône varietal blends.
After leaving Summerwood in 2005, Scott joined the Jada team to further explore the potential of Paso Robles Westside. In addition to Jada, Scott grows and produces wines with his family and consults for a select group of clients in the Paso Robles area.
JACK MESSINA, the autobiography
OWNER/WINE GROWER
The Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn is a poorly known AVA. Host to immigrant Italian and Jewish families in the 1950’s; it provided my initial exposure to winemaking as a child.
Fruits and vegetables were everywhere in the garden plot behind the small row house where my parents lived along with the Valenti’s and another set of Messina’s, whose relationship to our family still remains murky.
Fig and peach trees, a large vegetable garden, carefully tended and supplying still the best tomatoes I have ever tasted, were everywhere. Just beyond the driveway was a trellis overburdened with grapes; in retrospect probably sangiovese, but given the family’s roots, perhaps nero d’avola.
One day as I wandered around the basement, I opened a door leading to a small room, not much larger than a small bathroom. I was almost overcome by this pungent, earthy, feral yet somehow pleasant smell. Its source was uncertain but seemed to come from the wooden structure itself. Purple spilled everywhere. It flowed onto the floor, a wooden bench and covered the floor and even the ceiling. In the center was a huge barrel, also purple. Sitting on top was a small basket press- the first I had ever seen.
My great uncle Peter, who we called nonno, was the winemaker. His production was modest, perhaps a barrel a year. I assume he used natural yeast. Malolactic fermentation may or may not have occurred. As best I could tell he was his only customer. I remember watching in fascination as he would interrupt his meals and drink directly from a wine bottle with a rubber baby nipple inserted in the top; apparently a traditional method of preventing oxidation.
Life unfolded. It turned out I was a pretty good athlete. Scouted by a number of major league baseball teams, as my myopia became evident my dreams of playing along Mickey Mantle dissipated.
You did not have to see that well to play football and somehow some obscure latent gene pool made itself evident. I soon grew much taller and bigger than my entire family and was offered a scholarship to play football and baseball at the University of Delaware under Dave Nelson and Tubby Raymond. Part of a national championship team, I somehow squeezed in my studies and was offered a position in a medical school class at Albany Medical College. I will be eternally grateful to the university for finding funds to partially support my post-graduate education.
After interning and beginning my residency in internal medicine and cardiology on the Harvard Service of the Boston City Hospital, I was once again thrown a curve ball. This pitch was one I had never faced before; the draft and the Viet Nam war. Thrown unceremoniously into the 36th Engineers as a battalion surgeon, I was stationed in Vinh Long IV corps.
As fate would have it have it, it was there I met Max Painter. It was to become a life changing event. Now deceased, Max was my first exposure to southerners, their wonderful sense of humor and joie d’ vive and to cardiac surgery. Max was assigned to MILPHAP in a civilian hospital in Vinh Long. He became a great friend and mentor. Initially volunteering to go on medical missions with him, I soon was assisting him in surgery and vice versa. Impressed with the dramatic effect surgery could have on illness and people’s lives, I decided I wanted to become a thoracic and cardiac surgeon and give up the more sedentary subspecialty of internal medicine.
At the time tremendous advances were being made in cardiac surgery. The specialty fit well with my physical skills and the athlete’s inherent willingness to be challenged and “win” with everything on the line. In retrospect it was a great choice. After training with phenomenal surgeons in Memphis, Houston and New York I began a practice in Manhattan and began a family.
My mother Jennie was a wonderful cook and dressmaker, working for top NY fashion designers. Her talents were obviously passed on to my daughter Ryan, who is now a chef at the Disney Resorts in Orlando.
After moving to Lakeland, Florida in part to support my son’s national tennis aspirations, I met George Tyson. Another southerner, George, a Duke trained thoracic surgeon and natural businessman, along with Bronson Mela rekindled my now very latent interest in wine.
Bronson was a buyer for the Publix chain and soon found his interest not only lie in purchasing produce and world class cheeses, but in wine-and particularly French wine. He soon owned several wine shops, some more successful than others, with thousands of bottles of inventory. George was developing his own wonderful cellar and we were fortunate enough to be developing these interests when the French Paradox was first identified (high fat diet/low cardiac mortality). The great Bordeaux wines were both cheap and wonderful. A far cry from nonno’s nero d’avola.
Fortunate for George and I, and not so great for Bronson, one of his stores was not doing well and the bank was going to assume the inventory. Before this was actually to take place, however, there was a window of opportunity! I spent many a wonderful afternoon riding my Harley down to Bronson’s warehouse and sampling the best wines in Europe, softening the blow with incredible imported cheeses. I was really hoping the wines were protective and the French paradox was for real.
My wine epiphany really occurred after several trips to Europe including Burgundy and Tuscany. I remember one special moment as if it were a photograph; two bicycle riders, silhouetted by the waning Tuscan sun, winding their way carefully through a narrow road engulfed by sheep and surrounded by endless breathtaking vineyards. It was so incredibly surreal. It was if the earth was speaking to me or perhaps it was the wine consumed earlier in the day. Whatever its source, some primordial, suppressed urge was unleashed that day. I promised myself this was something I would become part of, if I was to be so fortunate.
My opportunity came in the form of Lawrence Johnson. I became interested in a business my family friend Glenn Rink was developing. He informed me that a California attorney had some of the original shares in the company and he was interested in selling them. After a telephone conversation, it became apparent that Lawrence and I shared a similar passion for the land. Lawrence had been an attorney for the Dole Corporation and specialized in agribusiness. He knew a good deal about olives and even more about California farm land.
We agreed to exchange the shares and, more importantly he would accompany my wife Robyn and I on a two week sojourn to the unexplored wilds of California. Lawrence did his research and indicated he thought we should focus on an area on the Central Coast that was beginning to arouse some interest-Paso Robles. Google map was not invented yet, so I had no idea what he was talking about. I researched my California maps and arranged to meet him in LA.
I was unprepared for Paso Robles. It was everything Tuscany but with a cowboy flavor. I immediately fell in love with the area. Over the next five years and after multiple visits, I was fortunate enough to cross paths with John Crossland and Bob Denny. John was leaving Andy Beckstoffer in Napa and the two of them were starting a vineyard development company. “Paso “was now beginning to stir and attract international interest.
In 1999, I was fortunate enough to come upon land owned by Dr. Ray Hoy and his lovely wife, Susanna. The property consisted of 90 acres of hills and gentle slopes. The land was partially cleared, planted in barley and surrounded by oaks. Its soil was filled with calcareous boulders and was cooled by Pacific breezes entering the Templeton gap. It was a unique property in an area of California that the world was soon to hear about.
Over the past 10 years our vision has been realized. Situated on 5620 Vineyard Drive and lined by intensely purple plum trees, 60 acres of vines now exist. Multiple varieties of cabernet sauvignon, syrah, viognier, p. verdot, merlot, cabernet franc, rousanne and grenache blanc now fill the landscape. A beautiful 4000 case winery straddles one of the hills. Nonno, Max, George, Bronson and all my Italian ancestors would be proud!
Jack Messina, 2008
