Lisa Strid, our consulting Winemaker, is a Wyoming native who fell in love with wine while working alongside her uncle on his small vineyard and winery in the wilds of western Washington. After a year of pruning, netting, crushing, and fermenting Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, she realized she wanted to make a career of the work, and entered Oregon State University to study enology and viticulture. Strid is pronounced ‘streed,’ rhyming with ‘seed.’

While in school, Lisa interned at Alexana Winery in Oregon’s Dundee Hills, where she learned the ins and outs of luxury, small-lot winemaking. She moved to California upon graduation to take a position at E&J Gallo Winery. At Gallo she worked on the Specialty Winemaking team. After nearly two years she transitioned to the role of Research Winemaker. In this position, she focused on innovative equipment use, new technology validation trials and the exploration of process-driven changes to target different wine styles.

Lisa joined the Aridus team in June of 2016, just in time to help scale up production to over 100 tons. She enjoys working with the winery’s small team of dedicated individuals and is developing an expertise in the intricacies of Arizona winegrowing. She enjoys working on a scale which allows for close contact with customers, growers and grapes alike. One of the unique aspects of making wine at Aridus is that Lisa works with twelve different grape varieties.

“I love speaking face-to-face with wine lovers, watching and listening to them as they experience wines which may well become their favorites. My passion encompasses the whole of the craft of winemaking – the cycles of the seasons, ushering a grape from vine to bottle and those magic moments around a dinner table. It engages all senses and requires both scientific rigor and intuitive leaps of imagination,” she explains.

At Aridus Lisa directs not only the production of Aridus’ wines but also is responsible for the winery’s custom crush operation. The renovated former apple warehouse, just outside the town of Willcox, is where she diversifies her winemaking expertise according to the variables of the desert terroir of the Southwest and beyond. Lisa is also closely involved with the winery’s 40-acre estate vineyard in Pearce, Arizona, along Turkey Creek---a picturesque spot perched at 5,200 foot elevation currently planted both to white and red wine varietals.

The winery’s name is derived from the Latin word meaning dry or arid, pronounced air-i-dus. Scott and Joan Dahmer founded Aridus Winery in 2012 and today the winery has two tasting rooms, one near the winery in Willcox, Arizona, and the other in old town Scottsdale, Arizona.  More about Lisa: http://www.terroirist.com/2017/08/winemaker-interview-lisa-strid/