Jack Messina grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the son of Sicilian immigrants, watching his father and his uncle make wine off a backyard trellis. Decades later, a cardiothoracic surgeon by trade, he stood on rolling former barley ground in the Willow Creek hills west of Paso Robles and decided to plant. That was 1999. By 2005 the estate had a name, Jada, a nod to jade and the idea of constancy. Today the rows climb three dominant hills above 1,100 feet, the cellar is certified organic, and the wines still carry the accent of that Brooklyn kitchen.

From Bensonhurst to the barley hills

The Messina family were second-generation Italians out of Brooklyn, and the impulse to plant grapes was not a business plan so much as inheritance. Jack Messina remembered his father and his Uncle Nonno crushing fruit from a backyard vine, and that memory followed him west. In 1999 the family put vines into rolling ground that had grown barley, one of the pioneering plantings on the Paso Robles west side. The estate took the name Jada in 2005, drawn from jade, a stone that in Eastern tradition stands for perfection and permanence.

In December 2021 the property passed to Riboli Family Wines, the Los Angeles house behind San Antonio Winery that has been family-owned since 1917. Fourth-generation winemaker Anthony Riboli said the family was proud to call the Willow Creek District home. Winemaker Nate Hall, a Cal Poly-trained Sonoma County native who joined Jada in 2017 and took the lead role in 2024, shepherded the estate through organic certification while keeping the Messina-era cuvee names intact.

The flagship is called Hell’s Kitchen, named for the Manhattan neighborhood, a Syrah-driven Rhone blend that turns an immigrant memory into a wine.

Three hills above Willow Creek

Jada sits in the Willow Creek District, the limestone heart of the Paso Robles west side, where high bedrock slopes run from roughly 960 to 1,900 feet and the soils are calcareous loam and clay born of the Monterey Formation. The estate plants some 55 acres across three dominant hills, with hilltop terraces reaching about 1,300 feet and the Pacific only about seventeen miles off. Shallow calcareous clay loam, fractured shale, limestone pockets, and old marine fossils sit under the rows.

This is Region II climate territory, cooler than the Paso valley floor, and the Templeton Gap funnels marine air inland each afternoon. That cooling drives a wide day-to-night temperature swing, the diurnal shift that lets fruit ripen fully in the daytime sun while cool nights lock in acidity. The result is concentration without flab, dark fruit framed by lift, the signature that makes Willow Creek reds taste built rather than baked.

The wines, from Hell’s Kitchen to Strayts

Hell’s Kitchen is the wine to know, a Syrah-dominant Rhone blend that has earned 96 points from Wine Enthusiast across multiple vintages and a spot on Jeb Dunnuck’s Top 100 of 2023 for the 2021. Recent bottlings have leaned on Syrah with Grenache, Graciano, and a little Tannat. In the glass it is plush and dark, blackberry and plum wrapped around crushed rock and pepper, the kind of red that fills the mouth and then keeps its shape thanks to all that limestone-grown acidity.

Jersey Girl, named for Jack’s wife and her New Jersey roots, is a Cote-Rotie-inspired Syrah co-fermented with a whisper of Viognier that lifts the aromatics into violets and bacon fat. On the Bordeaux side, Strayts is a Merlot-led blend rounded out with Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, and Malbec, supple and savory with cassis and graphite. There is a white blend under the Hell’s Kitchen Gotham label too, proof the estate hedges across both Rhone and Bordeaux traditions.

What to pour Jada with

Hell’s Kitchen and Jersey Girl were practically built for the Paso table, and that table almost always holds red-oak-grilled tri-tip. The chemistry is simple and worth knowing. A Syrah-driven red carries firm tannin, and tannin binds to the protein and fat in a charred, marbled cut of beef, which is why the wine tastes softer and the meat tastes richer when they meet. The wine’s acidity, sharpened by Willow Creek limestone, then cuts through the fat and resets your palate for the next bite. Add a peppercorn crust or a smear of chimichurri and you echo the wine’s own pepper and herb notes.

Strayts, with its Merlot core, wants something gentler, braised short ribs or a mushroom ragu where earthy umami meets the wine’s graphite edge. The rule to remember everywhere here is heat amplifies alcohol, so go easy on the chili with these full-bodied reds or the burn will scorch the finish. Want to dial in a specific dish or vintage. Run it through our wine pairing generator for a tailored match.

Visiting Jada

Jada welcomes guests by reservation at the Willow Creek estate, where the experience runs from a modern tasting room out to a sun-dappled outdoor deck the team calls the Tree House, set among gardens with the vineyard hills rolling away below. Book ahead through the winery’s site, plan on a seated, unhurried flight of Rhone and Bordeaux blends, and confirm current hours and pricing when you reserve, since both shift with the season. For context on how Jada fits the broader west side and where to point the car next, our Paso Robles guide maps the districts and the routes between them.

Jada Vineyard and Winery: common questions