Today we share a really incredible interview with former NFL all-pro Sidney Rice. Sidney is part of the Super Bowl winning team from 2013. He also made a Pro Bowl and he talks about his career as well as his inspirations in the wine industry. He has recently started one of the most exciting wine brands of the Pacific Northwest, Dossier, with his business partner Tim Lenihan. Without further adieu, here is my exclusive interview with NFL legend Sidney Rice.
OB: What were some of your seminal moments as a member of the Seattle Seahawks?
SR: I definitely would have a top 2, winning the first Super Bowl for the City of Seattle and the parade afterwards. That experience was absolutely amazing and I get chills thinking of that parade. Every single angle you looked down those streets you saw people screaming and yelling. I show videos of people with their faces painted and these six or seven year olds with their shirts off and it is freezing cold. That was something.
Number two has to be the game winning catch against the Patriots. I think that was our turning point as a team to make us realize that we can compete with any team in the NFL. We were a young team at the time and it was Russ’s first year as quarterback and that game was our major turning point. The play was a double move, about 55 yards, and I had him beat and I am like I am not dropping that ball. It was raining hard outside so it was extra tough. I still have the photo where I am holding the ball as tight as ever falling to the ground.
OB: How did you first get interested in wine? Did you enjoy wine with your teammates?
SR: I think that it was definitely post-football where I am more interested. I was hanging around and tasting more with my buddies. During my career I was not that interested in wine. Tequila was my go-to but in 2018 me and a friend decided to visit the Napa Valley and taste some wines. The next year we did that again. Chris Cab signed with Pharrell when he was really young and he is one of my really good friends. We had visited his place in the Bahamas and he calls his dad and they had this amazing wine that we were impressed with. His dad said that he can open whatever he wants and Chris starts pulling out these crazy wines. Pulls out this 2003 Chateau Margaux and I am thinking that this is amazing stuff.
Our Napa trip was two months later and we had a great time — enjoyed diners at the restaurant at Meadowood and we were popping some crazy wines. The following year we did the same thing and went to French Laundry. Covid hit and that is when people started drinking a bit more and my choice of drink became wine. I was into more wines and started posting some of the wines that I was drinking and all of these random people started reaching out. I wanted to really learn and over the year and a half I tasted over 300 different wines. I was learning, you go down a rabbit hole and it is so fun and interesting. Different regions of the world and at that point Tim Leniham was seeing my posts and he said that I had to start drinking some Washington wines. He was bringing the Washington wines over. We would hang out at my house and his house. I mentioned one day wanting to start a label and he just lit up. He said that all of his friends are in the wine industry and has always wanted to do that. I said that I would love to partner with him and about five more times hanging out then we had to do this. I learned his passion for wine and that is how Dossier came about.
OB: Who are some of your most inspired people who have made their careers in the NFL and now the wine industry?
SR: You have to go with Charles Woodson, he is a legend in the wine industry and what he has accomplished in the NFL. I knew what Drew Bledsoe was doing with his Doubleback label and doing so well. What he has built and continues to build has been awesome. Charles has done an amazing job and that was one of the things that when Tim and I started to start Dossier. We were thinking of names and my main thing was I didn’t want to slap my name on a label and say that this is my wine. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the football career for what I did on the field. I wanted to create something special and let the wines speak for themselves. Tim and I feel like Washington is on the map but it is not getting the notoriety that it deserves. Last night I was at an event and someone was talking about the French wines and Italian wines and they said that Washington was their second favorite region. I think we will be hearing a lot more about that in the future. I want to continue to push that forward.
The terroir in Washington is amazing and the goal is continue to move that needle forward and help gain more notoriety to our region. One of my favorite things about the industry is the willingness for other people in the state who have done wine, the pioneers in the industry, they are inclusive. Most of the time in industries there is competitions but I have been impressed by the willingness for others to help in the industry. These guys who have been in it for a long time, and it is not like ‘he is new and I am not going to help him’ but literally Drew, Mark McNeely, Chris Figgins, Chris Upchurch, Gilles Nicault, they are like ‘if you never need help, give me a call’ and they are resources and it is so cool to have that community here and people willing to support each other.
OB: Talk about Billo Naravane, an incredibly talented guy. What do you like about the wines that he makes?
SR: I love the style of wines that he makes. But the thing that had us hooked was tasting through the wines, there was the consistency of all of his wines that he tasted. We were amazed how good that the wines were and they were completely different from the others that we interviewed. The wines are well-rounded from start to finish. I was like ‘this is it’ and I was thinking that this guy is really special. At the time I didn’t realize that he was a Master of Wine and it definitely shows in the bottle.
OB: People are curious to know what your cellar is like? Do you have some special bottles? What have you been enjoying now?
SR: When I started getting more and more into wine I immediately went on a huge Napa run and then jumped into France — fell in love with a lot of the first growths. Chateau Margaux and Chateau Latour. I have a few 2000 Chateau Margaux in the cellar and I have a bunch of 2010 Chateau Margaux. I have a 1990 Latour and 1982 Petrus and ’90 Petrus. I have some older champagnes. I am recently been down a champagne hole and I am in love with Jaques Selosse, been drinking Rose and Initial and fortunately I have some good friends who have been impactful of myth wine journey as well. These guys are like over the moon with these wines. I recently got lucky to get like 12 bottles of ’07 Cristal for a great price. I have some Burgundy as well, some DRC La Tache from the 90s and also DRC Richebourg from the 90s.