Maggie Kruse takes over from Rob Davis at Jordan Winery

Jordan Winery’s longstanding chief winemaker, Rob Davis, is to step down from his role on 1 July, which will be taken up by Maggie Kruse, who has worked alongside Davis for 13 years.

Jordan Winery’s longstanding winemaker Rob Davies is stepping down to make way for Maggie Kruse

A UC Davis graduate, Davis has worked at Jordan Winery since the inaugural 1976 harvest and is one of the longest serving winemakers in Sonoma County.

When he started out at Jordan, Davis was taken under the wing of consulting enologist André Tchelistcheff, who continued to mentor him until his death in 1994.

In his new role, Davis will continue to manage all grower vineyards and will serve as an advisor to Kruse and assistant winemaker John Duckett.

“At many wine companies, managing grape growers is a full-time job, and we are grateful for all of Rob’s work to lead both the winemaking and grower relations for so many decades,” said Jordan Winery’s CEO, John Jordan.

“For family businesses like ours, leadership changes like this only come around a few times in a century. This newly created position will allow Rob to focus entirely on grape growing while letting Maggie to take on more leadership responsibility after 13 years of dedication to the company,” he added.

Kruse graduated from UC Davis in 2005 and worked as an intern at J Vineyards & Winery before joining Jordan in 2006, where she worked closely with Davis on fine-tuning barrel and cork selections.

She was promoted to the role of assistant winemaker in 2009 and began overseeing all aspects of barrels, bottling and cellar management.