KJ, Part One

I'll confess to a sense of ambivalence when I write about what used to be called Kendall-Jackson and is now Jackson Family Wines. After all, this is the company -- let's call it an empire -- that was launched, in 1982, with the Kendall-Jackson Vintners' Reserve Chardonnay 1980, a wine that did not change how America drank chardonnay but confirmed its se…