FAILLA WINES - Key Persons
While the history of Failla (pronounced FAY-la) is short it is not without its complexities. Founded as Failla Jordan in 1998, it took its name from the husband-and-wife team of winemaker Ehren Jordan and fellow debtor Anne-Marie Failla. That year we planted our Estate vineyard on the Sonoma Coast and began buying fruit for our first releases, the very Rhône-style ‘98 Alban Vineyard Viognier and ‘98 Que Syrah Syrah.
However, after three vintages under the Failla Jordan label, the must hit the fan and we got into a legal dust-up with Jordan Vineyards and Winery. When the smoke cleared, we had agreed to cease using Ehren's last name to avoid trampling tender trademark toes and, putting our best foot (and better half) forward, we continued with simply "Failla". Many folks have asked us why we didn't just pick a fanciful name in the first place instead of playing roulette with our own surnames. Well, we never found ruins of missions, limestone kilns, stone walls or barns on our property, just several old trailers. Existing plants on the ranch include such wine-incompatible flora as agave (shot of tequila anyone?) and bay trees (boiled crabs anyone?). And geographic features on our local topo maps sport monikers such as Brain Ridge, Gualala River, and Hell Hole.
We debuted as "Failla" with a new Chuck House-designed label in the fall of 2002. Our original label, designed by Anne-Marie's sister Marybeth, has been archived and our first three vintages (stragglers safely socked away in our personal cellar) will join either the pantheon of collectors' items or the fraternity of the oddities bin.
With a degree in Economics from the University of Virginia, Anne-Marie would seem far more suited to her current career than her tradition-defying husband. Stints in investment banking at Morgan Stanley, first in New York and then Tokyo, venture capital at Advent International in Boston and the Bay Area, and then as an entrepreneur at an Internet start-up cum flame-out in San Francisco made her excruciatingly familiar with spreadsheets and pie-in-the sky projections.
Once wooed to the Napa Valley by Ehren, Anne-Marie dove into the wine business during the harvest of 1996 with a cellar job at William Hill Winery in order to learn the physical elements of an industry so often associated with glamour. Marketing positions followed at Beringer Wine Estates and Chappellet Vineyards before co-founding Failla Jordan with Ehren. During the earliest years of our vineyard, she pruned vines, picked fruit and learned to wield a weedwacker. Anne-Marie currently manages the business side of Failla and the business end of our daughters Audrey, born in 2001 and Vivien, born in 2005.
Ehren began his preparation for winemaking at George Washington University where he majored in Art History with a minor in Classical Archeology. "Of course", you say, "obvious prerequisites for a winemaking career". In fact, Ehren has no formal degree in fermentation science from any institution, a fact he proudly credits with his success.
Instead, one of those "thousand insignificant choices we make everyday" set him on his course: he got a part-time job as stock boy at Bell's Wine Shop down the street from ABC Studios in Washington, D.C.
While Bell's proprietors, the brothers Luskin, certainly introduced young Jordan to the possibilities of connoisseurship, Ehren tells more anecdotes about waiting on Sam Donaldson and Andy Rooney than about sublime vertical tastings of Chateau Latour. (Ever heard the expression "Youth is wasted on the young"?)
Eschewing traditional routes to a winemaking education, Ehren instead worked his way up the vertical integration ladder. After graduating from college in 1989, he left for Denver, Colorado where he worked briefly as a sales rep for a large wine distributor. But the siren song of ski season in the Rockies grew louder as winter approached and Ehren headed for the restaurant scene in Aspen. Schussing by day and bussing by night, our 21-year-old would-be winemaker went from wine steward to sommelier/manager by the end of the season.