Kevin Jussila

Described as “a hard working, hard headed Finn who never learned the meaning of a small hobby”, Kevin embodies Sisu!

Kevin Jussila worked two careers for decades. By day, he was a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch.  Every other waking moment, Kevin is the owner and winemaker of acclaimed kukkula in Paso Robles. Recently retiring from Merrill Lynch, he now devotes himself entirely to winemaking.

In the late 1990s, Kevin Jussila was making wine in the basement of the Jussila family home in Topanga, a coastal community in Los Angeles, and tending an acre-plus of Syrah vines he planted on their property. Today, kukkula, in Paso Robles, is celebrated the world over as one of California’s premier producers of estate Rhône-style wines and one of the best examples of sustainable farming.

Kevin, Paula, and their young family moved to Paso Robles in 2004. After purchasing an eighty-acre walnut orchard, Kevin went on a fact-finding study before tackling the job of planting a vineyard.  He began planting their organic dry-farmed estate vineyard and building their winery and home – stone by stone – on the property.

Since their first release in 2006, kukkula has earned dozens of awards and consistently high scores. Among the accolades, Wine & Spirits Magazine named kukkula’s wine, Aatto, a top-100 wine in the world in 2019, Wine Spectator honored the winery’s modern and sustainable architecture, and in 2020, kukkula won top wine of the year at Finland’s largest annual wine competition.

kukkula means “the hill,” or “high place,” in Finnish. The winery name, and most of the wines in kukkula’s portfolio bear Finnish names and are a celebration of Jussila’s roots. Jussila’s parents emigrated from Finland. His mom grew up in Northern Ontario, Canada where his dad first emigrated from Finland, before moving to California over a decade later. Kevin’s first language was Finnish.