Oak tree in Sonoma during the sunset
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A lovely table was set for the first official tasting of this unorthodox Pinot Noir using special glasses reserved for rare wines. No distractions would keep a laser focus from assessing the wine at hand, with all the lights turned up as bright as they could go, so every aspect of this libation could be scrutinized. Yet one of the participants was hit by a bolt of inspiration and grabbed the two glasses and the bottle that contained the precious wine and briskly ran outside towards a field where the sun was setting, painting the sky with vibrant colors that created a sense of awe in any onlooker who was fortunate enough to experience it. The other taster caught up, and he was about to go off on his friend for not taking their project seriously. But before he could get a word out, the sky seemed to envelope him with its intense power and beauty, and he was transcended beyond his previous dogmatic plan. At that moment, his friend handed him a glass and poured their wine that held within it an impossible, ludicrous dream, yet once the other glass was poured, both men looked at each other with a knowing look that indicated that this was the best way to test this wine; it had to compete with the gorgeous seductress of the heavenly landscape where they lived, as that would be the ultimate way to know in their bones if they have something.
On the first sip, the impossible became possible; the ludicrous dream materialized as a vivid, delineated vision. The wine was really good, analogous to the Burgundy wines that obsessed them to no end, yet it was distinctly its own with a very different sense of place.
These two relatively young men would go on to become important pioneers for making Pinot Noir in the Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California, and they would place this wine area on the map. Their experimentation happened around 50 years ago and their wines are now among the prestigious Top 10 Wine Spectator List, winning the 8th spot in the 2024 list and then the impressive 4th spot in the latest 2025 list.
Williams Selyem
Old barn on Westside Road in Sonoma
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Burt Williams and Ed Selyem started as wine hobbyists; their day jobs were as a newspaper typesetter/proofreader and an accountant, respectively. They formed an incredible friendship that first bonded over their love for Burgundy wines, and back in the 1970s, 1er Cru Burgundies from respectable producers were affordable. So, they became avid collectors and drinkers on humble salaries and dreamt the impossible: to make Pinot Noir wines as great as some of Burgundy’s top red wines.
Williams Selyem estate vineyard
courtesy of Williams Selyem
Due to financial constraints, they had to become incredibly resourceful in obtaining equipment for their winemaking project. They realized that farms were looking to get rid of their fully functioning dairy stainless steel tanks because they were no longer needed and were only taking up valuable space. Although it is an iconic name for Pinot Noir today, the Russian River Valley in Sonoma was virtually unknown in the ’70s; hence, they were able to source some excellent fruit despite having very little money to their name and initially being hobbyists. To their surprise, the wines they were making in dairy tanks in a garage ended up evoking something very special: as enchanting as the Burgundy wines they had come to love, yet they were their own expression of their home in the Russian River, a home that always left them astonished by its natural radiance.
In 1981, Burt and Ed became professional winemakers, establishing Williams Selyem, a producer that not only became known for its single-vineyard Pinot Noir wines but also was part of making Russian River Pinot Noir world famous.
Unique Technique
Burt and Ed sold Williams Selyem in 1998, but today, serendipitously, the majority owner is the 200-year-old legendary Burgundy producer Domaine Faiveley, under the leadership of VP and director of winemaking, Jeff Mangahas.
Dairy tanks at Williams Selyem
courtesy of Williams Selyem
Jeff has spent 25 vintages in the Russian River Valley and has worked for three different producers in what has become an iconic winemaking area. When he first came on board at Williams Selyem, in 2011, he wanted to learn as much as he could from the founders. So, he examined their notes with intense enthusiasm, marveling at how they came upon such an ideal way of expressing a purity of fruit and a strong sense of place in their Pinot Noir wines. Those diary tanks are a key part of what makes the texture of their wines utterly sumptuous, while also ensuring the texture and structure of the wines never gets in the way of truly taking in all the nuanced aromas and flavors.
Dairy tanks are not only highly insulated, being made of two layers of stainless steel with copper piping connecting them, they are also a lot shorter and longer than a typical modern wine tank. Jeff noted that their tanks are ten feet long by five feet wide, which enables them to have a thinner cap spread over a larger surface of juice. The cap is the collection of skins after grapes have been pressed for juice, which floats on top of the juice in the tank while the wine is fermenting. In Williams Selyem’s case, there are some seeds and steams also part of the cap, as Jeff will use anywhere from 25% to 35% whole cluster grapes, because in the ideal climate of Russian River Valley the seeds and steams reach an equal ripeness with the sugars as opposed to cooler or hotter climates where they sometimes struggle to find that overall balance during ripening, and unlike in the Russian River Valley, it is not always possible to use them every year. Jeff is in glorious climatic conditions so he is able to use all parts of the grape bunches, including the stems many times, adding a wonderful spicy quality and another dimension of sense of place.
Jeff Mangahas
courtesy of Williams Selyem
Jeff likes to explain the difference in their fermenting technique in dairy tanks with the analogy of a water bottle because if you imagine a regular, modern wine tank, it has similar ratios as a standing water bottle, where there is a lot of liquid below the cap, floating at the top of the water bottle, so it only influences a small layer right below it, leaving the rest of the liquid in the bottle without the fabulous aromas, flavors and texture. So how does one, in that situation, integrate the cap’s influence into the rest of the liquid? A winery has to use either a pump, which is noted to be quite aggressive, or the less aggressive technique of someone using a tool to punch it down to get all the goodies to the bottom of the tank. But Jeff made the point that one can over-extract by pulling out too much astringency from the cap. So, there is always the tough decision that needs to be made: does one risk overextraction to give the full dimensionality of the skins, seeds and stems to the juice, sacrificing a well-integrated structure by introducing too much extraction, or does one pull back on the extraction, sacrificing the loss of aromatics and flavor that really gives a wonderful expression of place?
Well, Jeff does not need to make that choice, as there is no pumping or punching down since his dairy tanks become the water bottle when turned on its side, with a much larger surface area and less depth of juice underneath. This naturally gives a much more even distribution of exposure to all the goodies that the cap has to offer. And if that wasn’t enough, they do gentle foot treading to help integrate the cap into the juice, and this is done for all of their Pinot Noir wines, going to great lengths by taking up a lot more space by using dairy tanks and using a lot more workforce to foot tread each one.
Passion Fueling Superlative Quality
Williams Selyem estate
Rachid Dahnoun / RSM Creative
All those decades ago, Burt and Ed could have never imagined how they would change the wine world, as leaving one’s day job for a passion project seemed already too fantastical to be true. They were driven by an obsession with Burgundy wines, not knowing if they could ever live up to the ones they loved so much. And even more fantastical: one day, a legendary Burgundy producer becomes the majority owner of their winery and, so impressed by their wines, is happy to keep the techniques that Burt and Ed developed during those exciting, experimental times.
As the Williams Selyem wines are outstanding in their ability to express an elegant intensity of aromas and flavors that have a distinctive sense of place, and they can have anywhere from 19 to 20 single vineyard Pinot Noir wines in a given year – each idiosyncratically delightful, yet the texture is always gorgeous with fine, seamless tannins – quite a feat for any winemaker to pull off. Jeff also noted that, despite all the initial Pinot Noir clones (the same grape with different traits) coming from Burgundy, Pinot Noir’s ability to adapt genetically to various soils and topographies means it can be altered by the place and become its own clone. This grape variety adaptation, another aspect of giving a multidimensional expression from that vineyard within the Russian River Valley, and so those characteristics in the wine will not be exactly experienced anywhere else.
Strolling through the vineyards late in the evening
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Jeff’s commitment to Burt’s and Ed’s legacy is fierce as he goes to great lengths to continue sourcing those old school diary tanks, which have been sourced far and wide from Oklahoma to Amish country in Pennsylvania, as he is cut from the same cloth as those founders of Williams Selyem. Jeff was on a very different path initially, doing quite well as a scientist in the molecular biology field but he also had an intense passion for wine that first started with Bordeaux, Washington State, California as well as making his way to drinking other European regions such as Burgundy that finally made him take his journey down a different road to getting his masters for winemaking at U.C. Davis. As he was getting through his graduate degree, thinking about which wineries would be his dream, fortuitously, one day he drank a 1996 Williams Selyem bottling of their Allen Vineyard that blew him away, and he was obsessed at that moment. Today, he is leading the helm at his dream place inspired by the wines of Burt and Ed just as those Burgundy bottles inspired them.
And these wines continue to be given some of the highest honors and accolades because when there was a chance to pull back on their unique practices once they had established one of the strongest names in the Pinot Noir world, as many wouldn’t blame them for just doing the minimum required, they were driven to still keep up with their unbelievably extraordinary practices, as it was always about chasing that next exemplary wine that becomes the once in a lifetime bottle that outdoes it predecessor bottling that many thought could never be usurped. And that same drive courses through Jeff’s veins as he is all about overshooting the stars instead of settling for them.
Williams Selyem Pinot Noir wines
Cathrine Todd
Williams Selyem Pinot Noir wines:
2023 Williams Selyem, Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California: 100% Pinot Noir. Lifted aromas of brambly fruit interwoven with notes of fresh sage and forest floor, with marked acidity on the palate, with black cherry compote flavors and a hint of nutmeg, with a nimble body and finely etched tannins.
2023 Williams Selyem, Pinot Noir “Westside Road Neighbors” Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California: 100% Pinot Noir; sourced from neighboring vineyards along Westside Road: Allen, Bacigalupi, Bucher, Flax, Rochioli River block, Riversmoke and their Williams Selyem Estate. Gorgeous aromas of baking spices and raspberry strudel, with a slightly plush body, delectable cassis flavors intermingled with fresh sage and exquisitely structured tannins that give an energetic shape and drive all across the long length of flavor.
2023 Williams Selyem, Pinot Noir, Williams Selyem Estate Vineyard, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California: 100% Pinot Noir. A premier vineyard site along Westside Road that is a half mile south of the Allen Vineyard. Intoxicating bouquet of Earl Grey tea and rose oil with ripe, juicy cherries on the palate, with the fruit vividly defined and a multilayered fruit profile emerging with mulberries and loganberries revealing themselves with pristine clarity that is enhanced by a bright acidity and overall agility of the wine to come across as elevated and light as well as richly satisfying with an extremely long finish.
Other wines made by Williams Selyem:
2018 Williams Selyem, Sparkling Brut, Blanc de Noirs
Cathrine Todd
2018 Williams Selyem, Sparkling Brut, Blanc de Noirs, Drake Estate Vineyard, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California: 100% Pinot Noir. Intense minerality on the nose with warming flavors of baked golden apples sprinkled with cinnamon, with a creamy texture created by very fine bubbles and a delightful peach tart note in the background, with a long persistence of bubbles that caresses the palate.
2023 Williams Selyem, Unoaked Chardonnay
Cathrine Todd
2023 Williams Selyem, Unoaked Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California: 100% Chardonnay from older vines as Jeff wanted to make an unoaked Chardonnay as great as those ultra-premium oaked Chardonnay wines, and hence, he uses old vines to give depth, concentration and structure; even though he says most drink this wine immediately, it could be cellared if one wants to do so. Hands down the best unoaked Chardonnay I have had with its depth of flavor as pineapple coulis and lychee syrup intermix in a knockout combination with fresh acidity balancing the concentrated flavors that also include lemon curd and juicy mango with an incredible weight and textural component that Jeff contributes to using older vines and it is just perfectly balanced and shows how stellar an unoaked Chardonnay can be when made with such high standards.
2023 Williams Selyem, Zinfandel, Saitone Estate Vineyard
Cathrine Todd
2023 Williams Selyem, Zinfandel, Saitone Estate Vineyard, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County, California: 100% Zinfandel from old vines planted in 1895 sourced at the Saitone Estate Vineyard on Olivet Road. Intriguing smoldering earth note balanced by raspberry preserve flavors with zingy, fresh cranberry in the background, with a touch of pink peppercorn, a silky texture and lush, fleshy fruit on the palate, with an overall vibrancy, finishing with fennel seed aromas lingering in one’s head.
Dining and Cooking