Please The Palate |

Clarice Wine – An Innovative Way To Sell Small Production Wines

This story originally appeared in California Winery Advisor. Adam Lee has worked in all aspects of the wine industry. He has worked at a wine store, on the floor of a restaurant in Austin, Texas, for a distributor and wrote about wine before starting his first winery, Siduri. Experience working in all facets of the wine business has provided Lee with an advantage; he knows all of the benefits and challenges the industry poses. The biggest challenge a winery faces is selling the wine. When Lee started Siduri in 1994, he focused primarily on direct sales, with most of the sales sold on futures. Times were different then. “Pinot Noir was still in its infancy in the wine drinkers consciousness and growing a mailing list was easier than it is today,” Lee explained. Wine reviews, mailing lists, and direct sales helped his brand grow until they were large enough to work with a distributor. Thanks to a couple fortuitous events, Siduri followed this path. After a few bottles of wine, Lee was very relaxed and generously confident and left a bottle of his wine for Robert Parker, which resulted in a good review. Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant Owner Debbie Zachareas was at EOS Wine Bar at the time and began selling the wine. By 1996, Siduri grew to almost 900 cases and entered the three-tier market. “It was a lot about getting to a certain size about where you needed a distributor.” By 2015, Lee sold Siduri to Kendall Jackson. While he remains the winemaker, the new ownership freed Lee from the business side of things. As a result, Lee gets to spend more time in the vineyard. “The growing and picking is the most important part,” according to Lee and he was thrilled to spend more time there. With the time in the vineyard, Lee began thinking about the legacy he would leave for his children. He and his wife Dianna liked the idea of leaving them something small that would not be a burden but rather something they could choose whether or not they wanted to grow. In 2017, named after Lee’s grandmother, Clarice Wine Company was born.

17 May, 2018

Wine’s Most Inspiring People 2018: A Pioneer and Champion of Hillside Grapegrowing

This story originally appeared in Wine Industry Network. Since purchasing his vineyard at the top of Spring Mountain in 1970 and founding Smith-Madrone in 1971, Stuart Smith has become the leading voice of the hillside grower. While Smith believed that the best grapes come from the mountains, a hypothesis had been written that vineyards on hillsides are detrimental to the land. In response, Smith began arguing in favor of hillside vineyards and land-use issues. Being the leading voice was “thrust upon me,” Smith shared. “It was not my intent. When I first got a permit to log the property from Department of Forestry, I was warned that there would be protesters once I brought out a chainsaw.”

Stuart Smith was born and raised in Santa Monica, California and moved to Berkeley in the 1960s for his undergraduate studies. It was at Berkeley that he realized that he liked wine more than beer, atypical for a college student. He became friends with people from the Napa Valley and over several years became enamored with wine and the Napa area. The seeds of his passion had been planted.

25 January, 2018

Wine’s Most Inspiring People 2018: Grapegrower, Innovator, and Always One Step Ahead

This story originally appeared in Wine Industry Network. Those around him will say that David Parrish is not one to brag about his accomplishments, but they are the first to call David Parrish an innovator in the wine industry. “David lives to work. The industry is his passion. He is always trying to perfect something or get that one thing a little bit better,” explained long-time friend and business colleague Charlie Castro. “David always stays ahead of the curve.”

David Parrish is always one step ahead. He owns vineyards in Paso Robles. He is a winemaker. He is a trellis designer. He has developed a shade cloth. He holds more than 20 patents. “He is constantly moving and shaking, coming up with ideas for a new adaption. He has woken up from dreams with new trellis ideas. Who dreams about inventions?” marveled his daughter Cecily Parrish Ray.

18 January, 2018