Adam and Dianna Lee found their way to the White House, but they didn't enter like the majority of visitors, through the front door of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
On the contrary, their Siduri pinot noir entered through the back door, thanks to Daniel Shanks, the White House wine steward. Shanks chose the 2012 Russian River Valley as the only Sonoma County wine to be poured for the holiday parties at the White House last December.
This year marks the winery's 20th anniversary, and the couple is celebrating its milestone with a free open house Saturday at the Santa Rosa winery.
The Siduri story is a compelling one. It begins with two pinot-crazed kids in their 20's pampering their wine by camping out in winery cellars in sleeping bags, and two decades later making a splash at the White House.
"I believe (Shanks) mentioned being 'wowed by the wine,' " said co-vintner Adam. "The price point was also important."
The $28 bottling is a rare find for pinot of this caliber.
"We've always tried to keep our wines at reasonable prices, and the White House seems to be very conscientious about making sure the wines are good values," Adam said.
Today the couple produces a hefty line-up of pinots; their winery is essentially a house of pinot noir, with bottlings from the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County up through the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey, to Sonoma County and then all the way to Oregon's Willamette Valley.
"In our experience, pinot noir has a fascinating ability to be both complex and terroir-oriented and also just wonderful to drink," Adam said.
The magnetism of pinot is what lured this couple from Dallas to begin their craft by pooling their resources — $24,000 — and making their way to what they considered ground zero of pinot: the Russian River Valley. Their first vintage was 1994.
In those early years, Adam and Dianna had a nasty case of separation anxiety with their wine. They would camp out in the winery cellar, dozing off in sleeping bags in between pampering their fermenting grapes.
Both worked at Healdsburg's Lambert Bridge Winery at the time in sales and were allowed to make their first Siduri wines there. Devoted, they'd use every break and lunch hour to check in on the wine.
"I think the people who worked in the cellar at Lambert Bridge were amused by us," Adam said. "We were paying their custom crush fee. This is work they were being paid for, but we wanted to be hands-on."
By 1999, both had quit their day jobs to focus entirely on their brand and they hired their first employee.
"I don't think we ever considered not succeeding at that point," Dianna said, with a broad smile.
Of course the bold and audacious couple did their part to tip the scales in their favor back in 1995. They heard the influential wine critic Robert Parker Jr. of "The Wine Advocate" was at the Meadowood Resort in Napa Valley.
"We might have had a bit to drink and that inspired us to take a sample over," Adam said with a mischievous grin.
Dianna laughed. "It seemed like such a good idea and didn't seem risky at all."
They left a bottle and a handwritten note for Parker with the concierge. The next morning, Adam regretted what they'd done and called the concierge to get the bottle back. But it was too late.
A couple of months later, Parker's review came out, scoring the pinot noir in the 90s, putting Siduri on the map in a big way.
The couple has had a good ride overall, but the years did bring at least one serious challenge. In 2001, Dianna was diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease that triggers the immune system to turn against the body it's designed to protect. She had to undergo chemotherapy, and the couple said since then its mantra has been "balance."
"I'm in remission, but I have to avoid sunlight and watch my protein intake," Dianna said.
While she has been able to keep her health balanced, she said she's less hands-on at the winery, and her main focus is on their three kids — Christian, 14; Amber, 11; and Truett, 8.
Through it all, the winery continues to thrive. This year, it produced 15,000 cases of Siduri, compared to the 107 cases from their first vintage in 1994.
"We never expected it to turn out the way it did," Adam said. "In many ways it's a dream come true, but we didn't dare to dream it ... 95 days out of 100 we're thrilled to go to work and that's a pretty good rate."
Peg Melnik can be reached at 521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com.
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