Napa Jack Wine

Napa Jack is owned by real estate developer and philanthropist Jack Morris; he founded Jack Morris Construction in New Jersey when he was 18 years of age. This company built a number of residential spaces in the Edison, New Brunswick and Somerville communities in New Jersey. Some of these include Pauline Estates, Rachel Estates, Lillian Estates and Farmland Estates. And the company has been involved in numerous commercial projects including in Atlantic City.

Morris and his wife Sheryl Weingarten Morris founded Piscataway, NJ based Edgewood Properties in 1992; Morris is currently the president and CEO of the company. Edgewood has become a significant player in the real estate space, owning, operating and managing commercial and residential real estate around the country with a focus on New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Florida resulting in over 9 million square feet of space.

He and Sheryl also donated generously (including the land) to build the state of New Jersey’s only freestanding Cancer hospital in New Brunswick, named the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center. This state of the art center features 12-stories and 520,000 square feet and opened in 2025. This center is connected to the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and the Rutgers Cancer Institute. And Morris donated 14-acres of land in the Monroe Township to the Make A Wish Foundation of New Jersey. One of the areas inside this fairy-tale like castle looking building is named the Jack and Sheryl Morris Wing.

Morris has also been involved in a number of other projects in the state. He opened a branch of Wolfgang’s Steakhouses in Somerville, a restaurant with both domestic and international locations. In 2017 Morris and business partner Joe Jingoli purchased the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and converted it into the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City. This hotel is the third tallest building in Atlantic City, topping out at 470 feet.

The inception of Napa Jack began with a trip to Napa Valley in 2019. During that trip, Jack, his wife and daughter secured an appointment with winemaker Russell Bevan. The two men hit it off; Russell has become an integral part of the brand having crafted all of the Morris Family wines and Napa Jack bottlings since their inaugural vintages.

Napa Jack
Each Napa Jack bottling is assigned its own proprietary name, referring to characteristics important in life and in business.

The 2021 Napa Jack Liquidity, Napa Valley is deep ruby in color; ripe and sweet from both fruit and barrel, this wine smells like blackberry jam, boysenberry spread, blueberry, baked plums, cassis, dark chocolate, caramel, sweet cedar, all-spice and a note of pipe tobacco. Balanced and easy drinking, the palate is generous in terms of its fruit, but gentle in terms of its texture. This wine tastes like red cherry, Santa Rosa plum, dark raspberry, blackberry, boysenberry and dark mulberry. A thread of assorted spices complete the finish, including flavors of cinnamon, clove, dried tobacco leaf, white pepper and sage. Despite its listed 15.1% ABV, the bright but balanced acidity keeps its overall feel, fresh and spirited especially noticeable on the finish. The tannins are gravelly textured, lingering with a fully coating dusty character but in tandem with the fruit. A light warmth lingers at the end of each swallow. We would love to pair this with our mother’s preferred oxtail stew recipe. We don’t remember the ingredients, but we do remember the flavors and the family time when we used to enjoy this meal in our youth. In terms of aging, drink this wine in the next 5-7 years rather than any longer term play.

The 2021 Napa Jack Cabernet Sauvignon, Courageous is deep ruby and completely opaque; this wine does not lack in terms of its color. Ripe and sweetly fruited, the bouquet smells like blackberry jam, Coral cherry at the peak of ripeness, a variety of cherry we are highly familiar with as we pick them every year in Brentwood, CA at the U-Pick farms, baked plums, Himalayan dark mulberry, bittersweet chocolate, sweet tobacco, Graham cracker, mocha, and sweet baking spices including cinnamon, cardamon and nutmeg. In terms of aromatic crowd appeal, this bottling has absolutely nailed it. The palate is equally as ripe, but doesn’t quite cross into the territory of being jammy. It tastes like dark cherry, blackberry, dark plums, dark mulberry, chocolate, dark cocoa powder and a light but lingering darker savory note, a union of both dark pepper and a woodsy spice. The tannins are remarkably supple, especially from this particular vintage from Napa Valley; fully ripe and resolved they linger with a gravelly and lightly dusty/grippy character. For a pairing, try a well-marbled T-bone steak and a BBQ.

Select Wines
Morris Family
The 2022 Morris Family Sambrielle Rosé California is deep salmon in color; red fruited, minerally and elegant the bouquet offers aromas of Rainier cherry, orange peel zest, blood orange, watermelon rind, raspberry, white strawberry, and rose petals. And there is a light herbal but not green thread including thyme. On the palate there are flavors of raspberry, red cherry, ruby grapefruit, orange peel and pomegranate pith with a lingering spicy, dark and savory character including dark pepper and a subtle note of dried bay leaf. We love this wine’s texture in combination with its lift from the bright but balanced acidity. The mouth feel sports a fleshy and supple character, like sinking one’s head into the comforting caresses of a memory foam pillow. We needled and nosed this bottling 3 years post vintage; it still has several years of life ahead of it. In terms of pairing, we would love to drink this with a New Orleans’s style recipe calling for spicy giant BBQ shrimp.

The 2021 Sambrielle Morris Family Rosé Napa Valley is deep salmon in color; the red fruited and sweet bouquet is highly refreshing four years post vintage. It reveals scents of wild white strawberries, raspberry, dried orange peel, ruby grapefruit, not fully ripe papaya, and as it evolves in the glass, it opens to a pronounced layer of watermelon jolly rancher candy. Still extremely bright across the palate, this wine is holding up very well. Its tastes mimic the bouquet to some extent with flavors of strawberry, raspberry, watermelon, strawberry guava, and a light citrus character, most noticeable on the finish. From personal experience, this bottling pairs quite well with the branzino and spinach at VintEdge Wine Bar.

The 2020 Morris Family Chardonnay, Napa Valley Vivacious is deep gold in color; not buttery and not oaky, the bouquet reveals aromatics of lemon zest, a light note of bruised apple, beeswax, apricot, champagne mango, baked pineapple, butterscotch and vanilla. There are plenty of scents playing on this aromatic field but the wine needs time to evolve for these to fully express themselves. The mouth feel sports a wonderful, silky, and supple texture from the entry through to the finish. Its flavors include golden apples, pineapple, pear, yellow peach and ginger with a light but lingering note of white pepper. At five years post vintage, we’re noticing some slight tertiary characteristics creeping in, including of toasted almond, hazelnut, honeycomb and apple pie. This grapes for this wine were 100% whole cluster pressed; the wine went through 100% malolactic fermentation followed by 14 months of barrel aging in 50% new French oak and 50% once-used French oak.

The 2022 Morris Family Pinot Noir, Rebellious Russian River Valley Sonoma County was aged for 14 months in 50% new French oak and 50% neutral barrels. This wine is medium to deep ruby, based on its dark color, it appears that all phenolics possibly available in the grapes were extracted. The nose is a ripe but layered union of fruits, dried herbs and barrel influences. These scents include dark raspberry, ripe cherry – edging into the darker spectrum of this fruit, dark plums, chocolate, a thread of mocha, white sage, tea leaf, pipe tobacco, old cedar box and white pepper. Some of the darker and savory components on the bouquet are also expressed on the palate; this wine tastes like bramble, raspberry compote, red cherry, dark pepper, cured meats, smoked cedar and a persistent note of dried tobacco leaf. The tumbled tannins linger with a light gravelly character, felt more on the front of the palate. This wine is bright from its balanced acidity, but it is also plenty dark and savory. Not all Pinot Noir’s clamber for something from the BBQ, but this one sure does. Perhaps pair this wine with a Cornish game hen covered in an assortment of dried herbs and darker spices.

VintEdge Wine Shop
VintEdge Wine Shop is located in Somerville, New Jersey in the Somerville Town Center, a collection of retail spaces and luxury condominiums. And this shop is conveniently next door to VintEdge Wine Bar. This sizable shop carries a wide diversity of wines including wines from both small and larger producers from Napa Valley. A special room in the back contains their most premium bottlings including from Napa Valley and parts of Europe. And as expected, the wines of Napa Jack are also sold here.

Regular tasting events are held weekly in the store offering wines, beer and other craft products. Several very reasonably priced wine clubs are available including a reds only or access to private wine lockers.

VintEdge Wine Bar
This is a fun place to hang out in the evenings, either at the bar where its easy to meet other patrons, or in the lounge area towards the front of the space or at one of their dining tables. We love their cocktail selections; trusting the bar to deliver something delicious we ordered the Cosmo Savannah. Spot on. And also trusting our go to cocktail when on the road, we also ordered a mojito. Our modus operandi Double fisting it.

VintEdge Wine Bar encourages reservations but also allows walk-ins if space is available. One room is a devoted cellar with a fine selection of premium wines. As expected, the Napa Jack wines are also served as are additional wines bottled under Morris Family. Private wine lockers are available for rent. And for larger parties, the “Napa Jack” branded room can be rented out.

VintEdge Winery
In November 2020, ground was broken just south of the city of Napa for VintEdge, a custom crush winery. A small amount of wine was made here in 2021 with their first harvest for clients occurring in 2022. This state of the art winery houses a number of premium wine brands and is used by several notable winemakers for their clients (or their own brands) including Russell Bevan, Thomas Rivers Brown and Mike Smith.

Vintner Stu Lerner of Lerner Project Winery was the initial partner in this winery with Jack Morris; today the Morris family are the sole owners of VintEdge Winery. In addition to the Napa Valley wine brand, Napa Jack, Morris also produces wines under Morris Family Cellars label, CAPIO and a kosher wine in partnership with Herzog Wine Cellars. He was a partner with Stu in the Napa Valley based kosher wine brand called Ka’Sher.

This winery was designed around functionality, plenty of space, cleanliness, ease of operations and high tech with design input from numerous individuals including Stu, who implemented some of the best features from wineries he has visited in his career, winemaking practices from Russell Bevan and other winemakers and Andy Ryan of Ryan Mobile Bottling.

The winery includes 5 temperature and humidity controlled barrel rooms, four of which are located upstairs and are serviced by a large freight elevator (with respect for earthquakes, barrels are stacked a maximum of four high), two large wine presses, an optical sorter, a massive case goods storage space capable of storing up to 35,000 cases of wine, a sizable dry goods storage room and a full service lab including a WineScan™ produced by Foss Analytics.

One is immediately impressed by the sheer amount of stainless steel contained inside; this visual includes three primary catwalks serving 60 stainless steel tanks of differing sizes all equipped with their own pumps and Pulsair Systems with the tank monitoring hardware and software serviced by TankNet of Acrolon Technologies, Inc. InnoVint provides overall management software. All the physical winemaking equipment was purchased new.

Large bays were designed with mobile bottling trucks in mind. They pull in to the rear of the winery and several bay doors open allowing for ease of access and setup. VintEdge owns a number of large generators to run their operations during loss of power. And located in the rear of the building is their winery water treatment system with the resulting water sent to NapaSan.

Office and meeting spaces and a two-level hospitality section are available for clients who make their wine here to host guests; these opened in late 2025. The hospitality part of the winery is handsomely designed featuring plenty of space (always appreciated when tasting wines) and walls decorated with prohibition era photographs.