Siduri Wines and Clarice Wine Company founder Adam Lee was on a plane, midair over New Orleans last week, when he heard the news that his bank of 26 years was in trouble.
But it wasn’t anger or fear that gripped him. Yes, he was nervous. He had a $70,000 balance with Silicon Valley Bank, the leading bank for California wineries, which collapsed Friday, creating the biggest bank failure since the Great Recession in 2008.
But the overwhelming feeling, Lee says, was sadness and even worry about losing the critical and wide-ranging support the bank had offered him and others in the industry. Working with a bank with a Santa