So long, Daniel!

The journalist Daniel Thomases, a great connoisseur of Italian wine, passed away.

When I will enter a tasting room and I won't hear his voice thundering "Silence!" I will understand that it is true. A great figure in the world of Italian wine has left us: journalist Daniel Thomases. American, Harvard graduate, he had chosen to live in Italy and from Florence he spread his knowledge about the wines of our country for almost forty years.

Everyone remembers him as a collaborator of Luigi Veronelli and, at his death, curator with Gigi Brozzoni of the Guide he created. Correspondent from Italy for Wine Spectator (1990-1996), International Wine Cellar (1999-2001) and Wine Advocate (2003-2006), he contributed a great deal to making the Italian reality known abroad. Author of several books, collaborator of numerous publications, including generalist ones (such as Il Sole 24 ore from 2004 to 2009), Daniel was a personage with a grumpy character and many did not like him, but his preparation and knowledge of the Italian territories and the dynamics that govern this wine world were out of question.

Always travelling around tasting and talking to producers, he had his own way of approaching the glass, as if the whole world around him was bothering him at that precise moment. We colleagues have often been reproached for being too noisy and disturbing his concentration. The youngest people, who did not know him, wondered who that grumpy gentleman was and perhaps even dared to make a good-natured joke, but an exchange of opinions with him was enough to understand what a deep knowledge of "his" Tuscany and beyond he had.

We will miss you, Thomas, we will miss your decisive and motivated judgments, we will miss your lucid vision, your "cumbersome" presence. May the earth be light on you.