Cliff Lede

Proprietor

You can talk to Cliff Lede for a long time and never hear the word “I.” He doesn’t like it. He prefers “we.” It’s less grandiose, more inclusive. It’s more indicative of cooperation and teamwork, central tenets of his efforts to date at six-year-old Cliff Lede Vineyards.

In fact, the first thing the Canadian businessman did when he acquired a vineyard and winery in the Napa Valley was to start assembling a team. Then, together, they set themselves on a course toward winemaking excellence in a gorgeous, prime corner of the renowned Stags Leap District.

Cliff Lede (pronounced “LAY-dee”) was born in Edmonton, where he grew up making “basement wine” with his mother. In his late 20s he began hanging around a local wine store and talking with its knowledgeable owner, who gave Cliff his first taste of good Bordeaux, a Ducru Beaucaillou. “I remember thinking, This is pretty good wine,” he says in typically understated fashion.

Many years later, Cliff still likes Bordeaux…OK, he’s crazy about it. He collects it (and has since the 1982 vintage). He reads everything about it. He buys futures of it. He looks for deals on it. If a restaurant wine list has a bottle of Mouton he’s missing from his vertical collection, he’ll try to strike a deal with the owner to obtain it. “Collecting became a passion,” he says. On one trip to the Bordeaux region, he remembers thinking, “Boy, wouldn’t it be great to have a little bit of this for my own?” Then he returned to Canada and reality hit: France is a long flight and many time zones from his home in Vancouver. He didn’t speak the language. And what about cultural differences? What about his family? He let the idea drop.

A year earlier, though, in 1997, Cliff had visited Napa on a business retreat and liked it. A runner, he recalls standing in warm sunshine one winter day and thinking, “You can get up in February and go for a run in shorts; it sure would be nice to own some of this…” But again the notion remained only a dream. On his next Napa trip, something clicked – maybe it had to do with being in his own time zone, because a moment later he said, “A person should probably start looking.”

And so he began his search, which would eventually lead him to the quiet, strikingly beautiful, out-of-the-way 60-acre property in the Stags Leap District. He’d found his “some of this,” and it happened to be planted with the red varietals – Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petite Verdot – that do so well in the Stags Leap District. The team at Cliff Lede Vineyards had their mission. “We want to take Bordeaux varietals to a whole new level here, and we’re doing what it takes to achieve that,” Cliff says. “Many years from now, wine lovers will still be seeking rare wines from our area, and we hope to make some of them.”

Having defined the vision, Cliff has set about making it reality by hiring the best team of vineyard managers, winemakers, and support staff he could find—veterans who know, as Cliff says, “much more about wine than I ever will.”