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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 94 WINES&VINES January 2018 W ell after Hyde Vineyards had become an es- tablished farming operation with dozens of high-end winery clients producing vineyard- designate wines and a waiting list of other premium wineries hoping to do the same, founder Larry Hyde purchased another property in the Carneros appella- tion of Napa County. On the north side of Highway 12, which runs from Napa to Sonoma, Hyde Vineyards included more than 150 acres of vines that Hyde had established in 1979; on the south side of the highway was a parcel of about 30 acres he had purchased in 2005. The larger, more famous vineyard operation was owned by Larry Hyde and other members of the Hyde family, but the smaller plot was for him and his sons and would eventu- ally support a small wine brand. Beginning with the 2017 vintage, that wine brand is being produced in a new winery, and Hyde owns the vine- yards on both sides of Highway 12. Larry Hyde and his sons now manage nearly 200 acres of vineyards in Carneros. The new winery is sur- rounded by the vines that Larry Hyde, 72, and sons Peter, 33, and Chris, 31, planted in 2006. Wines produced at the winery are bottled under the Larry Hyde brand, and the winery is called Hyde Estate. Larry and his wife, Beta, are partners with Peter and Chris in Hyde Vineyards and the new winery, but the two entities are managed as separate companies with Chris Hyde serving as managing partner of the winery. As the stainless steel catwalks were being installed in late August, just in time for the first pick of Pinot Noir, Larry Hyde sat in the new winery tasting room and discussed the impetus for the new winery. "One way we got here was Christopher passed his masters' program in wine business and became aware of the financial potential of producing your own wines," he said. While a wine brand and winery had been part of the original vision of purchasing the new property, it's still a much smaller business when compared to the vineyard. "That's our primary business: selling grapes to good winer- ies, and that still pays for everything," Larry Hyde said. Several years before the winery was built, Hyde and his sons put together a deal to buy out Hyde Vineyards. That deal closed in 2011, and a few years later, when Chris Hyde was earning his MBA at Sonoma State University, he began to evaluate the family's small wine business. Prior to his studies at Sonoma State, Chris Hyde earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural business from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and worked at the sales and marketing firm Wilson Daniels and the Carneros winery Starmont. In addition to the vineyards and winery, the Hydes are partners in Hyde de Villaine, or HdV, which is a collabora- tion between them and Aubert de Villaine, co-owner and co-director of the famed Burgundy estate Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and owner of A & P de Villaine. Aubert de Villaine married Larry Hyde's cousin, Pamela Fairbanks. Chris Hyde is HDV's director of viticulture as well as general manager at Hyde Vineyards. While the Hydes had always made a barrel or two of wine from their grapes, it wasn't a commercial project until 2009, when they bottled Pinot Noir under the brand Larry Hyde & Sons. That wine was made at the Patz & Hall winery in Sonoma, where Peter Hyde was working in the cellar. Winemaker and co-founder James Hall had been a long- time client of Hyde Vineyards, and when the Hydes had some grapes from their new property available, they offered them to Hall. But because the grapes wouldn't be from Hyde Vineyards, Hall had to decline yet encouraged the Hydes to make their own wine. "We had all this new fruit that we had the opportunity to make into wine, and James said, 'Why don't you bring it over and crush it?'" Chris Hyde recalled. Hyde Estate Owners of famed Carneros vineyard bolster brand with new winery By Andrew Adams TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT The covered crush pad offers a view of the vineyard.