Winemaker Channeling the vineyard’s voice
The talented Thomas Rivers Brown channels our terroir with precision and grace.
Thomas has a floor-to-ceiling list of accolades, including over sixty 100-point scores and experience at an array of prestigious estates. But what we love most is his deep respect for the vineyard. Through constant collaboration with the farming team, he has an uncanny ability to evoke a site’s essence in the glass. To us, there’s nothing more important.
A terroir-first approach
Name any prestigious vineyard in Napa. Chances are, Thomas has made wine from it. In short: he knows how to get the most out of exceptional terroir. It doesn’t come from a heavy-handed cellar regimen, or by bending a wine to his will. Rather, it’s about patience, precision, and minimal intervention.
He knows that the character of a wine starts early in the growing season, developing all the way to harvest. So he doesn’t simply show up when grapes roll through the cellar doors. He’s engaged with the vineyard team the entire way. And when the grapes arrive, he already knows what they need to produce wines of purity, nuance, and terroir transparency.
Excellence beyond measure
That philosophy has made Thomas one of Napa Valley’s most decorated and in-demand winemakers. Born in South Carolina, he earned a degree in Economics and Literature before a job at Turley offered him a sharp left turn into the wine world. And the entire Valley is glad he took it.
He soon became the youngest American winemaker to earn two 100-point scores from Robert M. Parker, kicking off a long string of critical acclaim. As a winemaking consultant, his résumé is loaded with Napa’s top wineries—including Schrader, Double Diamond, Far Niente, Maybach, Round Pond, Outpost, Pulido-Walker, Revana, Mondavi—as well as his own labels: Rivers-Marie, Aston Estate, Caterwaul, and Dorsey.