Bob Cabral

Executive Winemaker

“If you wouldn’t want to eat it, then I don’t want to make wine out of it.” That is Bob Cabral’s rule of thumb for harvest workers hand-sorting grapes as they arrive from the vineyards. After nearly thirty commercial harvests, Bob is an experienced winemaker whose meticulousness and patience yield wines that are authentic expressions of each vineyard site.

Bob Cabral has been involved in growing and making wine professionally since 1979 and has had an interest in wine and farming since his childhood helping his grandfather make wine in his barn. A fourth generation family farmer and grape grower, he took all he learned at the family farm and applied it to his studies at Fresno State University, ultimately earning a Master’s Degree in Enology.

His passion for Pinot Noir was evident very early on as he would spend every spare dime, and good chunk of his student loans, on buying wine from all over the world—especially Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. One of the first wineries he became passionate about was Williams Selyem. He joined their consumer list during graduate school in 1984 as customer #576, soon after experiencing the Williams Selyem 1982 vintage wines. Of course he didn’t limit his wine appreciation to just to Williams Selyem and Russian River Valley; exploring the wines of Burgundy, Champagne and Portugal, in addition to new comers from Sonoma and Napa Counties.

In the mid 1980’s while working at a large winery south of Fresno, Bob knew that Sonoma County was where he could best hone his skills and learn to make wines that could rival the best made anywhere in the world. He worked the next 11 vintages in various winemaking positions at De Loach Vineyards, Kunde Estate Winery, Alderbrook Vineyards and Hartford Court Winery. In 1998 Burt Williams recommended that Bob take over for him as Winemaker at Williams Selyem. Bob met with John Dyson, then the new owner of Williams Selyem, and discovered that they shared a similar philosophy about winemaking and viticulture: that the most important aspect of winemaking is in the vineyard. Bob became the winemaker at Williams Selyem July 29, 1998.

Heading into his eleventh vintage at Williams Selyem, his winemaking philosophy has not changed: “The key is to respect the vineyard and respect the fruit. Working with some of the best growers and vineyards in the world allows us to farm to the highest possible standards and provides us with the finest fruit available. That’s more than half the battle in working with Pinot Noir. Once the fruit is taken care of, then we try to intervene as little as possible. While there is no shortage of hard work in the cellar and you must pay careful attention to detail, great wines are really made in the vineyard. My job is to just guide it along and allow the individual vineyard to be expressed in every bottle.”

Bob, his wife Heather and daughter Paige, make their home in the Russian River Valley.