Siduri Wines' Adam Lee rises to challenge of making a sterling blended white

Bull’s-eye.

“In working on all of the blends, there is a point where you know that you hit it ‘just right,’?” said vintner Adam Lee, referring to his white blend.

“It is a bit difficult to describe, but when it works, it is pretty special … kind of an ‘ah-ha’ moment,” Lee added. “That part is the best.”

Lee, of Santa Rosa’s Siduri Wines, is behind our wine-of-the-week winner - the Four Mile Creek, 2013 North Coast White Wine at $14.

It’s a budget white that’s turning heads, a smart blend of viognier, sauvignon blanc and pinot gris. It’s cool, crisp and refreshing, a perfect summer white.

Lee said the biggest challenge in producing a white blend is finding affordable grapes that allow the winery to produce a budget-wise bottling.

“The United States is 52nd in per capita wine consumption, which seems ridiculous to us,” Lee said.

“One of the reasons that more people don’t consume wine is that the pricing is out of whack,” he added.

What the uninitiated don’t know about white blends, Lee said, is that they can be made with real character.

“Wines like this blend, at this price point, are sometimes not taken seriously,” Lee said. “A wine can be both fun and seriously made at the same time. We think this wine is both of those things.”

What is it about this blend that makes it a knockout? Lee said it’s the crisp acid coupled with its pitch-perfect blend of varietals.

“It’s the combination of an aromatic white (viognier) with two less aromatic but somewhat fuller whites (sauvignon blanc and pinot gris),” Lee said.

“This combination balances out the more forward character of the viognier and makes a more balanced, harmonious wine,” Lee added.

It’s interesting to note that this wine had humble beginnings. It was simply a leftover wine with no plan to bottle it commercially.

“The guys in the cellar, some years back, pulled all of the leftovers (the wine in the bottom of the tanks after bottling) from all of our whites together in one barrel,” Lee said.

“It turned out that we preferred the blend to any of the individual components,” Lee added.

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at 521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com.