Ah, the wisdom of youth. It’s striking how many really young sages there are in the world of wine.

Tyler Thomas, the assistant winemaker at the also youngish Franco-American collaboration HdV, was in town last week with some killer juice — the chardonnay was as as good as advertised, the syrah and Belle Cousine blend both revelations – and smarts that belie his appearance (he almost certainly gets carded at most places that serve his wines).

What helps make Thomas wise beyond his years is that he listens and laps up the approaches of his winery’s three leading lights, winemaker Stephane Vivier, renowned grower Larry Hyde,  and Hyde’s partner in the enterprise, Aubert de Villaine, who also happens to be co-director of a Burgundian house you might have heard tell of, a little place called Domaine de la Romanee-Conti (DRC).

Thomas passed along a few interesting tidbits about his winery and what he has learned there:

*’The most important thing we do is [choosing] the picking date.”

*”Many of our vines can only go 3 or 4 feet deep, which we like.”

*”The winemaking philosophy is coming from Aubert, which, particularly with the chardonnay, is a hands-off approach.”

*”Our most expensive equipment is the press.  … We don’t push the skins too much, and we don’t grind the stems. So we can press half as much and get the same amount of juice.”

More and more these days, wine lovers are following the careers of up-and-coming winemakers like  Thomas, seeing where they go and checking out that winery as well. If and when Tyler move on,  that’s what I’ll be doing. In the meantime, pass the HdV, please.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.