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MICHAEL FRIDJHON: The edgy, smaller winemakers who have made it
There is no shortage of creative energy among 25 to 40-year-old wine makers, but the task requires patience, stamina and access to funding
It's tempting to think that all winemakers who work outside the industry mainstream are some kind of lunatic fringe but this view would imply that there was no middle ground between conventional big winery styles and the super-edgy. Clearly this is improbable: consider the producer who was innovative 30 years ago, and whose business has grown. He would have to operate now like a big player, but this doesn’t mean that his wines are any less hand-crafted, or any less thoughtfully produced. But this does raise the question of where are the next generation’s Gyles Webb — the man who developed Thelema in the late 1980s and who still makes wines in the same precise and elegant style that brought him to prominence 25 years ago. There is no shortage of creative energy among the current 25 to 40-year-olds, but the task requires patience, stamina and access to funding. For every Marc Kent, Eben Sadie, Chris Alheit or Chris and Andrea Mullineux there is a mountain of broken dreams, lost saving...
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