As a young man, Adam Lee was employed as a wine buyer for Nieman Marcus in Texas when he met his spouse Diana who shared a passion for wine. He originally intended to be a wine writer but was advised to work a harvest and make wine first. The couple moved to the Russian River Valley in 1993 as the winemaking process quickly grabbed his interest. Adam and Diana soon pooled their $24,000 savings and founded Siduri Wines in 1994. The first Siduri vintage, in 1994, consisted of 107 cases of Pinot Noir from a small vineyard in the Anderson Valley. On a whim, he left a bottle of his first Pinot Noir with Robert Parker, Jr., who was staying in Napa Valley. Parker would award a high score to the wine and the Lees were in business to stay. Adam was one of the first young winemakers to strike out on his own to produce Pinot Noir in California. He quickly achieved renown and became a mentor for several other Pinot Noir specialists to follow including Brian Loring (Loring Wine Company) and Andrew Vignello (A.P. Vin). He also became a consultant for a number of Pinot Noir producers including ROAR in the Santa Lucia Highlands. He now has 26 vintages of making Pinot Noir under his belt. In 2015, Siduri Wines was sold to Jackson Family Wines, freeing the Lees from the business side of the winery but allowing Adam to continue as consulting winemaker. The sale did not dull Adam’s inquisitive nature and gave him time to launch several new projects. The most notable of these new projects is Clarice Wine Company. The Clarice wines represent a completely new approach to Pinot Noir for Adam. Instead of looking at individual blocks and clones of Pinot Noir, he began to look at the vineyard as one complete entity. This made the most sense with vineyards such as Garys’ and Rosella’s with which he had considerable familiarity and where the vines had matured. Adam purchases grapes from selected areas of both vineyards by the acre rather than by the ton. This allows him to work with Gary and Mark to determine farming and yield preferences. The two sections of each vineyard are considered one site, and the grapes are picked at one time regardless of ripeness. The two sections of grapes in Garys’ and Rosella’s vineyards typically ripen a day to 10 days apart, but they are picked at the same time so that some grapes are riper and others are less ripe. Clarice Phears was Adam’s grandmother.

https://claricewinecompany.com/