Winemaking

What drives us

A passion for creating quality handcrafted artisan wines that reflect the uniqueness of the regional grapes. Our desire is to share with you the results of our labor and our commitment to the philosophy of offering high quality wines that you can share with your friends and family. We offer you uncompromising quality and great wines that are meant to be enjoyed either on their own or with great foods.

Our Philosophy

Wine making has become many things to many people. The application of technology can be a wonderful thing. Yet,  at the root of all winemaking you are ultimately seeking to make something that is both a reflection of the grapes and an expression of yourself.

At J Doran Vineyards, our first goal is to "Let the grapes speak for themselves" . Sometimes in life, less is more, and our first and primary  goal is creating and sourcing the very best grapes available. We work hard to keep a simple approach to the wine making process. You will not find numerous varietal blends, complicated additions to the fermintation process or an over active zeal to try to "force" the wine to be something other than what it is. Our goal is to shepard the grapes thru the winemaking process, and not act as if we are creating something in a chemistry lab. Many wineries today resemble NASA flight control more than a place where wine is made.

We strive for full expression on a particular varietal, and to let that particular vintage and harvest express itself. We will back blend only to same variatal.  

Purpose

"Many people focus and strive for things that they can point to as successes and accomplishments. It's easy to have have made compromises in ways that we may not always see. Life can become as described here...

"The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less."

"We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conviences, but less time. We have more degrees, but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgement, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness"

"We smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possesions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often"

"We have learned how to make a living, but not a life"....


All of us at J Doran Vineyards are committed to a different path. "To making a life". Our purpose is to strive to make and share with you wines that enrich not just your life, but your spirit. Be it in what we do or how we share the results of our labor, we will work with the ideal that "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take ,but by the moments that take our breath away" This is our commitment to share with you."

- Chrstopher Doran, Founder