Kendall-Jackson Wine Center Culinary Gardens

International Cuisine Garden

Our International Gardens are dedicated to the fruits, vegetables and herbs used in French, Italian, South American and Asian cooking. These gardens allow our visitors to see for themselves how to pair wine varietals with different cuisines. Our chefs use the bounty from these gardens daily to develop creative menus and authentic dishes that you can access via the recipe database for your own experimentation.

French Garden
The French depend on herbs for seasoning their dishes, so you will find a broad selection here - dill, fennel, tarragon, lovage, sorrel, chives, mint and sweet marjoram. You'll notice many of these are also planted in the wine sensory gardens as affinities of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, two of France's most popular wine varieties.

Italian Garden
Italian cuisine basics, such as cannellini beans, roasting peppers, tomatoes, squash and eggplant are planted along with lesser known items such as cardoons (a wild relative of the artichoke with a bright purple thistle). The Sangiovese section, as the primary varietal in Italy's Chianti, is planted with many of the above items.

South American Garden
In addition to corn, chiles and cactus, you'll find epizote, yerba santa, papalo and alache in this area. You'll notice several spices used in South America are also affinities with Zinfandel, Syrah, Argentinean Malbec and Chilean Carmenere.

Asian Garden
Our Asian Garden thrives in winter, when the weather is wet and cool. This is when we grow Kailaan, Chinese cabbages, bok choy and Chinese mustards. In the summer, burdock, turnips, cucumbers, mint, lemon grass, soybeans and coriander flourish. Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling are wonderful complements for Asian cuisine.

Vegetable Trial Garden

See, taste, touch and smell several varietals of vegetables such as corn, eggplant, squash and tomatoes from around the world in our Vegetable Trial Garden. While you may find one or two varieties of these vegetables back home, you can see several varieties of whatever is in season at one time here. Each year we cultivate more than twelve basil varieties, dozens of squash, lettuces from all over the world, over 180 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and more.

Our Tomato trials are the highlight of our garden. Planted according to color, the varieties are fascinating. Great White, Hawaiian Pineapple and Black from Tula can all be found here, to name a few. Every September, we host our Heirloom Tomato Festival where attendees have the opportunity to sample with wine and taste recipes prepared by the region's top chefs. If you have not made a trip to Sonoma County recently, this festival is the perfect excuse.

Culinary Herb and Edible Flower Gardens

The marriage of food, wine and healthy lifestyle is a core value here at Kendall-Jackson. The presence of fresh, garden-grown herbs in a meal, along with a bottle of superb wine adds a simple, yet delectable, pleasure to life. Taste a bit of this lifestyle by including a stroll through our Herb Garden during your visit.

Herb Garden

Fresh, garden-grown herbs add a simple, delicious note to every meal. Grown formally or informally, herbs give pleasure throughout the seasons, offering color, fragrance, natural remedies, seasonings and numerous practical uses. Simply altering the application of an herb - for instance, Grilled Salmon with lemon verbena instead of rosemary - can quite literally change the flavor profile of a dish and the wine that will best compliment the meal.

Herbs gathered fresh from the garden provide a veritable rainbow of flavors designed to enhance foods and their natural affinities with wine. The A to Z list of culinary herbs is a long one. Often you will find our chefs clipping basils (Ocinium basilicum) the most favoured of the Mediterranean herbs, bay, chervil, chives, dill, marjoram, mints, oregano, parsley, Italian flat-leafed or curly, tarragon, thyme, sage, sorrel, rosemary and wild bronze fennel.

Edible Flower Garden

What is pleasing to the eye is invariably pleasing to the palette, and our edible flower garden plot meets both criteria. Edible flowers offer not only the beauty of a flower garden, but also the range of flavors that herbs do. Beautiful edible flowers such as nasturtiums, known for their tangy and peppery bite, have been used for centuries. They are a striking addition to salads. Anise Hyssop, borage, calendula, lavender and squash blossoms are others among the many edible flowers that may appear in this edible landscape.

Garden Tours are offered daily at 11am, 1pm and 3pm (weather permitting). Private garden tours & wine tastings are available for larger groups. Please call Tom Reinero at 707-576-3810 or email tom.reinero@kjmail.com to make a reservation.