Our Vineyard

Our 100 acre estate includes plantings of Mourvèdre, Tempranillo, Grenache, Albariño, Picardan, Loureiro, Macabeo, Carignan and Arinto. Our wines will feature unique blends and rich mono-varietals. Our artisinal hand crafted wines will echo the success of warmer regions such as the Cote du Rhone and various regions of Spain while expressing the unique style of Southern California.

Albariño

Our most planted white grape is Albariño and for good reason. As the earliest grape to ripen in our vineyard, we’re able to avoid much of the season’s heat for these delicate berries. Small, tight clusters help us to control the quality of the wine.Albariño pairs amazingly well with Mexican cuisine, especially chorizo, making it perfectly suited to San Diego.

Carignan

Our most planted white grape is Albariño and for good reason. As the earliest grape to ripen in our vineyard, we’re able to avoid much of the season’s heat for these delicate berries. Small, tight clusters help us to control the quality of the wine.Albariño pairs amazingly well with Mexican cuisine, especially chorizo, making it perfectly suited to San Diego.

Loureiro

A Portuguese varietal that is predominantly used in Vinho Verde and Rias Baixas wines, Loureiro will mostly be used in a blend with our Albariño, though we’re reserving some for experimental blending and varietal production. It produces a beautiful high-acid, low-alcohol wine that perfectly aligns with Jack Simon’s style.

Tempranillo

This focus of our red wine program is currently planted in five blocks of the vineyard. Tempranillo blends very well with most other Rhone and Spanish red grapes, as well as being a rock star on its own. We are excited to be producing an early-to-release red, a reserve, a blend and a rosé version of this versatile grape. Tempranillo thrives in the dry heat of Jack Simon Vineyards, enjoying the occasional relief of coastal breezes.

Graciano

This bold, aromatic varietal is perfect for adding that extra something to our blends. Due to its extremely low yields, we’ve given it some extra years without a crop to allow the vines a chance to establish. While our focus is blending with Graciano, we will still have a limited amount of pure varietal production.

Grenache

The draught tolerant nature of Grenache — along with its thick, woody trunks — makes it an ideal grape to grow in the heat and wind of Valley Center. It blends very well with Tempranillo and Mourvèdre, and stands beautifully as a solo varietal or a world-class rosé.

Macabeo

Macabeo produces high yields of impressive, football-sized clusters. It has moderate acid with an intense nose, making it a perfect blending grape for our white wine program. It has adjusted very well to the heat of Valley Center and is growing prolifically on the most extreme of our slopes.

Arinto

The tiny berries of Arinto can retain their vibrant acidity even in the heat of Valley Center. While beautiful and subtle on its own, Arinto is perfect for adding acid back into our white wines in an overly hot season.

Picardan

At Jack Simon, we are honored to be one of the few wineries working with Picardan at all, and especially as a single varietal wine. This extremely rare grape is only grown in five vineyards in the United States, the U.S. is currently the only country producing non-blended Picardan bottlings. As our last white to ripen, these grapes uniquely start out in a tube shape before widening to an oblong. We know these grapes are fully ripened once their green skins have a pink hue to them.

Mourvèdre

This is the most finicky varietal for us to grow and produce, but it’s well worth the effort! Mourvèdre is a native to Spain and as it prefers full sun and lots of water, it requires extra attention to canopies and irrigation. This ugly duckling of the vineyard proves all the naysayers wrong after a couple of years in the bottle. This wine is hugely complex with beautiful red fruit, as well as meaty and earthy notes.