Yes, indeed. They can be very tough, but they seem to have two weak points: drought and overfertilization. Being that you're in socal, you're going to want to keep it artificially irrigated probably for its entire life. My biggest jaboticaba is roughly 25 years old and heavily mulched. Yet, it shows signs of drought stress if we go without water for 2 weeks or more.
Also, if you fertilize the jabo, you'd want to be super careful not to overdue it. My experience is that they are very sensitive to fertilizer.
Jeff