2018 Clarice Pinot Noir Rosella's Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands 750 ml

Adam Lee is one of the legends of California Pinot, one of the top five or so names to know in the pantheon of Golden State icons. 

The wines for his iconic label Siduri helped build the mold of New World Pinots—rich, bold, and elegant—that have gone on to massive international success. His latest project, Clarice, parlays his formal brilliance as a winemaker and detailed knowledge of Santa Lucia Highlands terroir into wines that are as profound as they are exclusive.

We're elated to share that for the first time ever, thanks to a long history working with Adam, we’ve secured access to an enthralling single-vineyard Clarice Pinot Noir that is rarely ever available to the public.

The 96-point 2018 Clarice Pinot Noir Rosella’s Vineyard, which received rare Cellar Selection honors from Wine Enthusiast, encapsulates everything that has made Adam—a friend of ours for a decade—an undisputed master of Pinot. Jeb Dunnuck agreed, calling the 2018 “beautifully balanced” with glowing 95-point praise. Matching that score, Vinous declared it “among the standout wines from what is shaping up to be a superb vintage.” 

In this ruby-hued bottling, you’ll find the impeccable balance and resonant depth achieved by a Pinot Noir virtuoso at the height of his powers. Buoyed by a 2018 vintage custom-made for the variety, Adam teased sinuous, silky concentration out of two blocks of a classic Santa Lucia Highlands site that he knows intimately, having worked with these rows since their first crop in 2001.

In the best tradition of California Pinot, this wine is big, lush, and weighty, with a midpalate generously filled with black fruit. Yet the blueberry pie richness is perfectly balanced by the appellation’s radiant acids. All the parts of the orchestra are playing at the same level in amazing harmonious clarity.

The 2018 Clarice Pinot Noir Rosella’s Vineyard—a brand named after his grandmother—reflects Adam’s incredible command and knowledge of the site where this wine is produced. Planted by the famous Franscioni family in 1999, the 50-acre vineyard’s mix of cool, foggy mornings and well-draining sandy loam soils has made it the source of countless top-rated, waiting-list Pinots over the years.

Adam buys by the acre, not the ton, in order to tailor cluster-thinning and canopy management to the low-yielding vines. During his twenty years of experience with the site, he realized that as the vines aged, the grapes were becoming earthier, and attaining complexity and maturity at lower levels of sugar. This led him to begin picking at earlier dates and employing more whole-cluster fermentation—approximately 80% for this release.

As a result, the wines maintain richness, depth, and terroir transparency without ever losing freshness—setting a level of quality that all California Pinots should aspire to attain.