WINES OF PLACE AND PURPOSE

E16 Winery is an ultra-premium, luxury producer of single vineyard Pinot Noir and Barbera from California's most sought after appellations.

The E16 wine making team recognizes the value of partnering with celebrated and distinguished vineyard growers who share our commitment for sustainability and devotion to the fruit's truest expression of its unique terroir.

A singular passion for excellence and respect for the fundamentals of thoughtful farming are the threads that weave the E16 community together to produce wines of place.

Every bottle of E16 is a reflection of the cave and love for the land, farmed with humility and pride by our esteemed grower-partners.

TWO BRANDS, ONE COMMITMENT 

“Great wines start with attention to detail in vineyards expressing a silent covenant between their climate and soils.” — Founder, Robert Jones

Proving that “timing is everything,” a chance meeting between founder Robert Jones and winemaker Daniel Moore has evolved into the winemaking philosophy of E16 and Firefall. The pair became acquainted in the early 1990s when Robert visited the Russian River Valley to study cool-climate pinot noir and chardonnay from small producers.

Daniel was already an established voice in a region of celebrated vintners. In 1983, he journeyed there to follow his calling for making handcrafted wines and quickly became one of its earliest champions as the founding winemaker of two highly regarded pinot noir producers — Martinelli Winery and Lynmar Estate.

Robert and Daniel, inspired by their shared values, sought likeminded grape growers to establish a wine program highlighting sustainable vineyards and Moore’s gift for making exceptional pinot noir and chardonnay.

As the E16 brand gained favor among wine critics, the pair focused on making Rhone varietal wines for Robert’s Firefall label from the El Dorado County estate he had purchased earlier. With cool nights resulting from elevations of 2400 feet, the property’s Baby Rattlesnake Vineyard is ideal for growing Rhone grapes that receive the same degree of care and consideration as the fruit in the E16 program.

Today, Daniel continues to oversee vineyard operations for both brands, including a year-round collaboration with grape growers providing exceptional fruit for E16. Each seasonal decision, from winter pruning and spring shoot positioning to summer cluster thinning and fall harvest, has a profound effect on wine quality and ageability.

This attention to detail continues in the cellar where even the smallest decision can have a great impact. Daniel’s 30-plus years of success confirm his belief that handling grapes with the lightest possible touch is the only way to capture the full expression of a grape’s persona.

The combined efforts of Robert and Daniel are manifested in the creation of two separate programs, E16 and Firefall, with a common goal of making wines that express a sense of place, longstanding partnerships with growers, and distinction in the bottle.

MEET OUR WINE MAKER



Adam Smith's obsession with wine began when he was 21, an age where he was preoccupied with music, art and poetry-- in other words, his trajectory was following the path of a career bohemian.  He was swept up in both the romance and history of the wine world, carrying vivid memories of visiting the vineyards in Apple Hill as a child, having been raised in El Dorado County. 

In the beginning his interest was merely about gaining a deeper, objective understanding of wine.  A serendipitous move to Portland, Oregon landed him in a wine cellar gig at the prestigious Domaine Serene, under the mentorship of winemakers Tony Rynders and Drew Voit. 

Adam was hooked, and from there devoted his life to ultra-premium wine craft. After stints as an assistant winemaker with both Shea Vineyard and Bethel Heights, and a head winemaking post overseeing all Pinot Noir production for a Sonoma-based custom crush operation, he began visualizing a future for himself as a winemaking consultant and brand-builder, and set up shop in Oregon.  Adam was most notably at the helm of the inaugural iterations of Domaine Nicolas-Jay (a collaborative project launched by Dom. Meo-Camuzet's Jean-Niclolas Meo and Jay Boberg) and AVERAEN (an Oregon-focused branch of Banshee Wines). 

All the while, Adam's heart was in El Dorado.  Very suddenly in 2018, an opportunity arose to join Skinner Vineyards in Fair Play as Director of Winemaking, where he led efforts in making the most excellent expressions of El Dorado terroir possible, and brought with him a fresh aesthetic and rejuvenated presence in the national market.  After taking several years away from consulting in order to focus on Skinner Vineyards' new chapter, and continuing to split his time between Oregon and El Dorado, in 2021

Adam again began working independently as a consultant, and joining forces with E16.With a critically-acclaimed track record and a deep-rooted passion for his hometown soil, Adam aims to produce exquisite wines which place E16 at the leading edge, evangelizing the potential transcendence of El Dorado terroir.