+1. Siduri/Novy has been one of the largest components of my cellar for years. I really like Adam and have tasted with him several times. He clearly loves wine in general and loves discussing what he produces, even admitting when things don’t quite work out the way he wants. I’m really happy for him and Dianna, and hopefully his continued involvement will keep the quality level there.
Congrats Adam!! Very, very happy for you and Dianna. Invest that truck load of cash wisely.
Congrats Adam hope you get some R&R out of the deal!
Dear Siduri & Novy Friends,
As you know, over the past 21 years, we’ve pursued one goal – to make the finest possible wine from each of our vineyard sites. For us, those aren’t just some words on paper; it really has been our dream to make that one “perfect wine” form that one “perfect place”. It probably is an impossible dream; an unattainable goal that we’ve set for ourselves to push us forward. We’ve used that goal to help motivate us through those times when we had to use picking bins as cribs for our children while we sorted grapes. It’s the same driving force that has motivated us to wake up in the middle of the night and trek three hours to Santa Lucia Highlands to check sugars; or spend the night on sleeping bags in a cold cellar to do 2am punchdowns. We’ve always believed in “the perfect Pinot Noir” from a particular place and we’ve always pursued that goal fervently.
Over those same 21 years we have sent you some pretty monumental messages, like when we announced the births of our sons, Christian and Truett, and our daughter Amber. Today we are sending you another important message. After much careful consideration and deliberation, we have decided to sell the winery, actually both wineries, Siduri and Novy, to Jackson Family Wines. We’re sure this news comes as a big surprise to you and probably leaves you with a mix of emotions. Trust us; we’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster lately, feeling excitement, trepidation, and of course a little sadness. But please let us explain why we are excited more than anything and why we believe you should be as well.
Over the last several years, however, we have found it more difficult to pursue the goal of that perfect Pinot Noir. The constant need to be on the road to sell wine, or online marketing and communicating via social media coupled with the financial and logistical challenges of making so many different lots of wine from so many different places, have all combined to make it harder and harder to truly focus on the ethereal goal of making “the best wine.” That said, we honestly think we’ve made some of our finest wines over the last couple of vintages, but it has been truly exhausting.
So, when we were approached by Jackson Family Wines, we decided to talk with them. And, after we talked with them we were excited, and so we talked with them some more, and then a whole lot more (there’s been a lot of talking over the last few months). Just as importantly, we tasted their wines. We tasted some of the new wines they’ve been making at places like Hartford Court, Wild Ridge, and Champ de Rêves. We came to believe that the best way of pursuing our dream of making that perfect vineyard-designated wine was to sell both Siduri and Novy to Jackson Family in a deal that keeps me on as winemaker. That way, their resources can be brought to bear on the sales, marketing, business and logistics of producing Siduri and Novy, freeing me up to focus on the winemaking. In simple terms, we’ve always been more winemakers than winery owners, and this allows us to concentrate on doing just that.
So what does this mean for you, our devoted customers? Honestly, not much. We are still here, in a big warehouse on Airway Court, same as before. All of the people that you’ve dealt with in the past are here as well. Give us a call or drop us an email, you’ll hear back from us. In the near future, it will hopefully mean an easier system of ordering our wines, more timely tasting notes, and all sorts of improvements in the way we communicate with you.
From a wine point of view, the wines that we will be offering you are the wines that we’ve produced and bottled before the sale. We are incredibly excited about the 2013 and 2014 vintages, and know that you will be as well. Looking ahead to the 2015 wines, we believe this new arrangement will mean more of my time spent in the vineyard during the growing season, more ability to concentrate of the nuances of each section of each vineyard, and the ability to take all that we’ve learned about grape growing and winemaking over 21 years, and bring that knowledge to bear on a great set of grapes. That opportunity is truly exciting to us and we hope that it will be to you as well. So please stay with us as we move ahead on this journey. The goals we hold remain the same, but we believe that our ability to reach them has exponentially increased.
Cheers,
Adam & Dianna Lee
Good wishes for a simpler pursuit of making great wine, Adam and Dianna. Your passion and dedication have always been apparent.
Congrats!
Congratulations Adam and Diana! Hope this allows you more time to post. Your contributions to the board are huge.
Congratulations to the Lee family!
I agree that the KJ Family Wines wineries are producing some pretty exciting wines. You’ll be in (a) good company.
My local KJ salespeople are probably doing happy dances right now.
Hopefully the won’t pull a Verite and ask $500 a bottle.
No more Berserker day deals 
Congratulations to the both of you. 
Like most everyone else here, I’m delighted for Adam & Dianna and think it’s a smart move for them. I also sense a lot of angst over the sale
to K-J. I think we have nothing to worry about and that Adam will continue to be calling the shots at Siduri. We shouldn’t let our feelings towards the
ubiquity of K-J Vintner’sReserve Chard in grocery stores color our take on this deal.
It makes a lot of sense to me. Adam has to spend a ungodly amount of time on the road marketing his wines. When you got 3 small kids at home, growing like
weeds, and you think ahead to 20 yrs from now and say “What happened” and realize you missed out on a big part of their lives growing up. Like they say…
“Nobody laments on their deathbed that they wisht they’d spent more time at the office”. I think that pretty much applies here.
My sense is that K-J Family gives their winemakers a lot of free rein on what they do with their wines. I expect this to be the case at Siduri as well and we’re
not going to see a big change in the wines…maybe even an uptick in quality. It just means that we won’t be seeing that much of Adam in Espanola or
Omaha or Keokuck anymore. The only downside I can see to this deal is that Adam will have to be spending more time w/ Heimhoff. ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Tom
Seems to make sense on several levels. I have liked other K-J acquisitions–Benovia and Hartford come to mind.
Personally, anything that leads to Adam Lee spending more time making (more??) wine, and less time selling it sounds good to me.
Did KJ buy Benovia? I’m clueless on that one. Mike Sullivan of Benovia used to be at Hartford. I’ve followed Benovia “from the very start,” which isn’t that long.
Well put, Tom.
Nope, Benovia is not owned by JFW/Kendall-Jackson. Lots of talented winemakers have passed through Hartford Family Winery!
I could be wrong as I don’t have as many years in this world as compared to some others but I worked for JFW/K-J from '06-'11 and I don’t believe Jackson Family Wines acquired Hartford Family Winery (but it has been some years since I’ve worked there). As I understood it, HFW is in a “partnership” with JFW and the owner of HFW is Don Hartford (Jess Jackson’s son in law). Perhaps I’m wrong though on the intricacies of the business relationship. Either way HFW makes some just really enjoyable wines as well.
During my time at JFW/Kendall-Jackson I feel like they helped the legacy of Freemark Abbey and its wines when they purchased them IMO, Arrowood and Byron in 2007.
I live almost down the street from Siduri so during this past January we stopped in during Winter Wineland, Adam in attendance as well as 24 wines they were pouring that day. So much fun to sample many wines I had not yet tried. I hope that Adam continues to source fruit from many of the vineyards he has for years, I don’t doubt the portfolio of Pinot vineyards JFW owns or would be able to purchase from, but if we don’t get to see anymore Pisoni PN from Adam or many of the others he’s made over the years, I’ll be a little bit sad along with a few others. ;(
Nick,
You don’t have to worry about me sourcing fruit from so many places. I expect that to continue (and grow, actually — maybe back in Anderson Valley again?)…
I love making Pinot from so many places, and certainly expect that to continue!
Adam
According to the JFW website:
Sonoma
Anakota
Arrowood
Cenyth
Hartford Family Winery
Kendall-Jackson
La Crema
Matanzas Creek
Murphy-Goode
add Novy
add Siduri
Silver Palm
Stonestreet
Vérité
Wild Ridge
WindRacer