Got this email today from Adam Lee. Anyone know anything about this endeavor?
Dear Fellow Wine Lover,
As a person who once signed up for one of my mailing lists, I am writing you to let you know about my latest venture, a unique wine community called Clarice Wine Company. Now, before I describe more about Clarice, I want you to know that this is a one-time email. If you are not interested then there’s no need to unsubscribe or respond in any way as you will not hear from me again.
Clarice Wine Company is a one-of-a-kind wine venture combining Wine Community, Wine Education, and a Wine Club. Membership will be limited to 700 subscribers. As a Clarice Family Member you will be able to interact with 699 other members, discussing all things wine related and getting advice on restaurants, hotels, travel destinations, and even real-time suggestions on what wine to purchase. Clarice Family Members will also gain access to leaders in all fields of the wine business. Would you like to know about winery accounting? You will have the opportunity to ask one of the leading winery accountants in the country. Have questions about viticulture? They will be answered by one of California’s leading vineyard managers. And Clarice Family Members will be invited to two winery parties a year and will receive 4 bottles each of 3 different outstanding Pinot Noirs (the only place that these wines will be sold).
If you are interested in learning more about the Clarice Wine Company and perhaps becoming one of the 700 Family Members, I encourage you to sign-up at http://www.claricewinecompany.com or click the button below. There is no cost nor obligation when signing up. And, as I mentioned before, if you are not interested then simply delete this email and you won’t hear from me again.
Per Adam’s post on FB:
“When I first decided to name my new wine venture after my grandmother, Clarice Phears, I didn’t even consider how many references people would make to Silence of the Lambs.”
I signed up a few days ago after seeing Adam’s new signature for WB.
I have valued his contributions here in addition to enjoying many a Siduri pinot.
The inter-active element with the winemakers and others makes this intriguing to me as a consumer. I am looking forward to this.
This is a very cool project. I’m looking forward to see how Adam implements, and how it unfolds. The wines, which I presume will be excellent, will be just one of several significant parts to the experience. Super cool, and count me in. Adam is a winemaker from whom I’ve learned a ton over the past almost 15(!!!) years. He’s honest, transparent, and has a deep love of sharing process. This is going to be a lot of fun.
As a fellow producer, I must say I thought the approach was new, different, well-thought out, and could be a great differentiator for a new label. Well done, Adam.
Interesting idea but I don’t see how limiting to 700 members helps develop a community. Online communities depend on the network effect, which is why places like eBob and eSuckling didn’t work out.
Hey all. Thank you for the comments thus far. I appreciate reading them.
I don’t want to turn this into a fully commercial post (pretty damn close to it already). There are a lot of different aspects to what I am trying to do with Clarice.
Just briefly, there’s a major educational component. Each month members will get to interact with people involved in various aspects of the wine world. I’ve already got the first year scheduled out - and it includes people like Mario Zepponi (who will be available to talk about winery sales and that market), Michael Richoli (from Moss Adams - to talk about winery accounting), Jeff Newton (Central Coast vineyard manager to the stars), Scot Bilbro (to talk about blending), and many others.
There’s also a unique aspect where there will be one party at another winery – one completely unrelated to Clarice – but where we go the winery and tour and learn about what that winemaker does.
And there will be 700 members able to immediately share experiences about wine and all things wine related. So you could conceivably take a picture of the CdP section of a wine list, say “I don’t like bretty wines, what should I avoid” and have someone tell you not to buy the Pegau.
So, now it’s way too commercial of a post. But I think it is going to be fun and different.
I am sourcing from the Garys’ Vineyard and the Rosella’s Vineyard. I purchased approximately 2 acres of fruit from both vineyards – two distinct one acre sections at each. At Garys’ this meant the same clone but on different rootstock and at radically different locations in the vineyard. At Rosella’s this meant the Pisoni selection and the the Pommard clone. These were acres that I believed would work particularly well together but in past years I would have picked when each was ideally ripe. I purchased the fruit from both sites by the acre rather than by the ton. This allowed me to work with Mark and Gary to decide together on farming and yield decisions (so, for instance, I chose to have them delay virtually all fruit thinning until veraison to delay ripening) . As harvest approached, I walked and sampled the two sections of the Garys’ Vineyard together as one site. I did the same thing with the two acres of the Rosella’s Vineyard. The goal is to envision the site as a whole rather than being made up of different parts and then make the wines as one from beginning to end.
The grapes from each site were picked together. I used lot of whole cluster – 50% at Garys’ and 58% at Rosella’s. Fermentation took place together, with the two acres of Garys’ Vineyard fermented in the same tank and the same for the two acres of the Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot Noir. I used indigenous yeasts for these ferments and also indigenous malolactic bacteria.
Subscribers to the Clarice site will get 4 bottles of Garys’, 4 bottles of Rosella’s and 4 bottles of the SLH blend. That is all that they will be able to purchase and the wines will only be available commercially to subscribers.
I had lunch yesterday with Adam and we tasted barrel samples of both 2017 Garys’ and Rosella’s. I find wines at this stage difficult to evaluate and for that reason don’t write about those that are unfinished. What did come out of the meeting was Adam’s confidence in making these picking decisions as he has worked with the growers for over a decade and knows the sites well. Generally, I like the concept of what Clarice will do. the actual pricing of the wine was something I hadn’t expected. The access to diverse expertise, events and also owning wines produced by one of most prolific interpreters of California + Oregon Pinot Noir will be interesting to watch unfold. Maybe he will share some of the stories he told me because they are priceless.
I should let Doug respond, but I will jump in and let you know that what I think Doug is referring to is the Subscription Service idea. You are not going to be able to simply purchase the wines, you have to be a subscriber. As a subscriber you have many different benefits. The subscription costs a certain amount. The wine itself - it costs $4 a bottle.
There are 6 payments of $160.82 for a 12 month subscription. That includes the subscription, the access to the various wine personalities, the two parties, the case of wine, shipping and taxes.
