J. LOHR VINEYARDS & WINES CELEBRATES
FOUR DECADES OF FAMILY WINEMAKING
SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 10, 2014 – Starting this weekend, with the unveiling of two new 40th anniversary wines at this year’s Pebble Beach Food & Wine, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines will begin celebrating 40 years of family winemaking, and a four-decade legacy of pioneering winegrowing on California’s Central Coast. Since its founding in 1974 by wine industry visionary Jerry Lohr, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines has established itself as one of North America’s most successful family-operated wineries, and one of the last remaining independents of its size. Today, J. Lohr’s sustainably certified estate program spans more than 3,700 estate acres in Paso Robles, Monterey County’s Arroyo Seco and Santa Lucia Highlands regions, and St. Helena in the Napa Valley, making J. Lohr one of California’s leading estate-focused wineries.
“Our 40 years of family winemaking are part of a bigger story,” said Chairman and CEO Steve Lohr. “We are proud that our tale is intertwined in the great, evolving story of our appellations and their continued rise to prominence. While this milestone is a celebration for our family, and our amazing team, we also view it as a milestone for Paso Robles and Monterey. It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come together, and how promising the future is as we usher in the next 40 years.”
To kick off the 40th anniversary celebration, longtime winemaker Jeff Meier, who has been with J. Lohr since 1984, will unveil two new limited-release wines at Pebble Beach Food & Wine: the J. Lohr 40th Anniversary Red Wine from Paso Robles, and the J. Lohr 40th Anniversary Pinot Blanc from Arroyo Seco in Monterey County. Representing the two Central Coast regions that Jerry Lohr helped to pioneer, the 40th Anniversary Red Wine honors the winery’s first red wine bottling in 1974, while the 40th Anniversary Pinot Blanc commemorates one of the first whites bottled by J. Lohr, and honors Jerry’s original estate plantings of Pinot Blanc in 1972.
“The quality of our wines has always been rooted in our estate program,” said President/COO and Director of Winemaking Jeff Meier. “And like our estate program, our winemaking program has evolved to showcase the depth and diversity of great Monterey County and Paso Robles winegrowing. While our 40th anniversary wines reflect our rich history, they are also about how far we’ve come, and where we are going.”
Since its establishment in 1974, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines has played a key role in bringing Monterey County and Paso Robles winemaking to the world, with J. Lohr wines currently distributed in more than 30 countries around the globe. With the involvement of the entire second generation of the Lohr family, including Chairman and CEO Steve Lohr, VP Marketing Cynthia Lohr and Director of Wine Education Lawrence Lohr, J. Lohr is positioned to remain family-run. With Jerry Lohr, and the veteran J. Lohr team working alongside this dynamic second generation, J. Lohr has been widely hailed for making the best wines in its four-decade history.
Beyond its innovative viticulture and winemaking programs, J. Lohr is also a leader in numerous other areas. From the unveiling of the largest solar tracking array of its kind in the wine industry to its certification from the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance for all of its vineyards and winemaking facilities, J. Lohr has been at the forefront of the sustainability movement. J. Lohr, and the Lohr family, has also worked diligently to support other facets of the wine industry, including vineyard and winery research through major gifts to UC Davis and other educational institutions.
On an industry-wide level, Jerry is a past director and chair of Wine Institute, one of the four founding members of Wine Vision, which promotes a long-range view of the wine industry, and the founder of the National Grape and Wine Initiative, a coalition representing grape growers, wineries and academic institutions committed to improving the industry. Among his numerous accolades, in 2011, the California Association of Winegrape Growers honored Jerry with a Lifetime Achievement award. That same year, the American Society for Enology and Viticulture honored Jerry with its 2011 Merit Award. Like his father before him, Steve Lohr is a director and officer of Wine Institute. He is also a director and officer of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. On a more local level, Steve was a three-term Chairman of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, and he helped to spearhead the petition to establish 11 Paso Robles subappellations. In addition to her role at J. Lohr, Cynthia Lohr was instrumental in founding the Paso Robles CAB Collective, which strives to promote the full potential of the Paso Robles AVA in producing superior-quality, classic and age-worthy Cabernet and Bordeaux varietals. J. Lohr was one of the organization’s founding members, and Cynthia Lohr is a current PRCC board director.
“When we started exploring vineyard properties in the Arroyo Seco in the late 1960s, I couldn’t have imagined we’d blossom into the brand we are today,” said Founder and Owner Jerry Lohr. “We’ve built our business on relationships we’ve sustained throughout the years both within J. Lohr and our employee family, and among our extended family of distributors, retail, trade and industry partners, many of whom are still actively involved with J. Lohr in some capacity. It’s an incredible honor to have contributed to the growth of California wine overall, but also to have helped Monterey County and Paso Robles achieve recognition as world-class winegrowing regions in recent years.”
Among planned initiatives to celebrate J. Lohr’s 40 years of family winegrowing, the winery will be hosting a 40th Anniversary Summer Dinner Series at its J. Lohr San Jose Wine Center in June, July and August, which will feature the 40th anniversary wines. J. Lohr will also share its insight and reflections on forty years of Central Coast winegrowing through video and other digital content, to be shared at consumer and trade celebrations across the country throughout 2014. J. Lohr’s full lineup of 40th anniversary happenings will be listed at jlohr.com/40years starting May 1st. The limited-release J. Lohr 40th Anniversary wines will be available June 1st at J. Lohr’s two wine centers in San Jose and Paso Robles, and will retail for $40.
About J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines
Founded four decades ago by Jerry Lohr and still family-owned and operated today, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines crafts a full line of internationally recognized wines from its 3,700 acres of sustainably-farmed, estate vineyards in Paso Robles, Monterey County’s Arroyo Seco and Santa Lucia Highlands appellations, and St. Helena in the Napa Valley. Offering an expressive range of styles, J. Lohr produces four tiers of signature wines showcasing its estate grapes – J. Lohr Estates, J. Lohr Vineyard Series,J. Lohr Cuvée Series and J. Lohr Gesture.