History

Burt finds a kindred spirit in Ed Selyem, a family friend and the wine buyer for Speer’s Market in Forestville, and the two haunt Burgundy tastings together. Ed makes beer and fruit wines at home; Burt takes a few winemaking courses at UC Davis. Finally, they work up the courage to vinify Zinfandel sourced from Lee Martinelli Sr.’s Jackass Hill Vineyard. They surprise themselves by making a surprisingly subtle, sophisticated, and frankly delicious wine.

The two have gone full garagiste, foot-treading grapes in a rigged-up dairy tank, borrowing equipment from wineries like Russian River Vineyards and Litton Vineyard, and working out of a leased two-car garage on River Road in Fulton. Designer friend Graham Mackintosh creates a new label that “looks like a title page” of a book, a nod to Burt’s day job. Fellow winemakers discover the stuff and start passing it around, until an ATF agent and the Hacienda Winery get wind. Williams and Selyem realize that if they are going to do this, they’d better do it right. They rename the winery, get bonded, and they’re off to the races.

Bon Appétit magazine names the 1982 Hacienda Del Rio Pinot Noir Best California Wine of the Year. Then, at the 1986 Wine Spectator Experience in New York, Burt is named one of America’s top new winemakers, and Charlie Palmer’s Aureole restaurant places an order.

Of the 2,316 wines entered in the California State Fair Wine Competition, the 1985 Williams Selyem Rochioli Vineyard Pinot Noir wins the sweepstakes. The wine sells out. The ensuing attention ignites the vineyard-designate movement in the United States, establishes the Russian River Valley as a world-class region for Pinot Noir, and inspires young winemakers to skip modern interventionist tricks and embrace Burt’s old-school Burgundian ways. 

Legendary importer (and part-time exporter) Becky Wasserman shows up at Burt’s door with Burgundian vigneron Michel LaFarge in tow. After tasting the 1985 and 1986 Rochioli Vineyard Pinot Noir, Wasserman demands 50 cases so that she can do what’s never been done before: Sell California Pinot Noir in France. Burt only has only one case remaining of the 1985, and 25 cases left of the 1986. They shake on it.

Westside Road grower Howard Allen walks into the Fulton garage and asks Burt and Ed if they’re ready for more space. He offers to put up a simple winery on his property, just across the road from Rochioli Vineyard. Allen lets the winemakers pay what they can per square foot, and gives them ten years to make him whole. The winemakers install their dairy tanks on an outdoor concrete crushpad under a tin roof, and their barrels inside the new, bare-bones building on Allen Ranch. In time, the Allen Ranch bottlings are among the most admired wines in the Williams Selyem portfolio.

Burt and Ed are named one of the “Best Winemakers of 1989” by Wine Spectator, alongside Patrick Léon of Château Mouton-Rothschild, Tim Mondavi of Robert Mondavi, and Gary Andrus of Pine Ridge. Williams Selyem also earns its first Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines of the Year recognition for the 1988 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.

After years of never taking money out of the business and always pouring profits back in, Burt and Ed finally forsake their day jobs for full-time winemaking. They still haven’t hired help, working alongside their wives Gayle Selyem and Jan Williams. They hold back a significant amount of their production for their own enjoyment, shun publicity, and never open a tasting room or post a sign.

Burt and Ed deepen their commitment to single-vineyard Pinot Noir, introducing bottlings from some of the coast’s most revered growers. Ferrington débuts in 1992, followed by both Hirsch and Coastlands in 1994. It is during this era that Kathe Dyson—a lifelong red Burgundy devotée—tastes Williams Selyem for the first time at a Masters of Food & Wine luncheon where Ed Selyem is pouring. Turning to the stranger beside her, she declares she has never tasted a California Pinot Noir that holds up to Burgundy, until now. That stranger is Burt Williams. Kathe convinces Burt and Ed to add her directly to the list, bypassing the wait entirely.

Meanwhile, François Faiveley, the sixth generation to lead his family domaine in Nuits-Saint-Georges, France, stumbles upon Williams Selyem Pinot Noir and is impressed with the remarkable consistency and high level of quality of the wines in comparison with their American peers. Williams Selyem becomes his default wine-list selection whenever he is dining in the United States.

In keeping with their direct-to-consumer ethos, Burt and Ed sell the brand to longtime WS List Members John and Kathe Dyson, wine insiders and agriculture experts who share their values and are determined to maintain Burt’s standards. Following the sale, clone fanatic Bob Cabral steps in as winemaker, working alongside Burt to uphold the Williams Selyem focus on growers and low-intervention winemaking. 

The Dysons have owned Vista Verde Vineyard, in San Benito on the Central Coast, since 1990. They’ve replanted with the best clones of more than fifteen different grape varieties, including nineteen clones of Pinot Noir. An agrarian by education and persuasion, John Dyson develops a proprietary Williams Selyem nursery at Vista Verde that custom-propagates “triple clean” vines and offers them to grower partners at half the price a commercial nursery would charge, ensuring health and quality across the program.

In conjunction with Richard Smart, a worldwide authority on vineyard development, John Dyson develops the Smart-Dyson vine training and trellis system following trials in the early 1990s. The double canopy of the single-curtain system reduces vine vigor and improves photosynthesis, resulting in high-quality grapes. The Smart-Dyson system is today used in tens of thousands of acres of vineyard worldwide, particularly in windy coastal regions.

A young medical researcher from Washington State named Jeff Mangahas is living in New York and immerses himself in the fine dining restaurant scene. He tastes a 1996 Williams Selyem Allen Vineyard Pinot Noir and it sparks his passion for wine. He soon joins the List, dives deep into wine culture, and moves to California to study winemaking.

John Dyson acquires Litton Vineyard, renames it Williams Selyem Estate, and commissions a new “temple to Pinot” at the center of where it all began, “the heartland of the heartland of California Pinot Noir.” Under Dyson’s ownership, the winery adds two additional Estate vineyards: Lewis MacGregor Vineyard on Eastside Road and Drake Estate, a former apple orchard on the banks of the Russian River. 

John Dyson commissions a new “temple to Pinot” at the center of where it all began, “the heartland of the heartland of California Pinot Noir.” Under Dyson’s ownership, the winery adds two additional Estate vineyards: Lewis MacGregor Vineyard on Eastside Road; and Drake Estate, a former apple orchard on the banks of the Russian River. In acquiring these three properties, Williams Selyem continues with a longtime role as a steward of old land, old vines, and the stories that go with them.

Erwan Faiveley, seventh-generation vigneron at Domaine Faiveley in Burgundy, is twenty-three years old and living in Philadelphia when he orders a bottle of 1995 Williams Selyem Rochioli Vineyard at Le Bec Fin restaurant. A Burgundian to his bones, he knows what great Pinot Noir tastes like, and this is it. The encounter stays with him.

Mangahas graduates from the University of California, Davis with a master’s degree in viticulture and enology. He begins working at respected Russian River Valley Pinot Noir houses, including Dutton-Goldfield and Hartford Court.

Wine Enthusiast magazine awards our 2007 Litton Estate Pinot Noir 100 points. It’s the first time a major wine publication has awarded California Pinot Noir a perfect score. The Williams Selyem team takes enormous pride in the fact that this prestigious honor has gone to a wine made entirely with grapes from our home Estate vineyard.

Jeff Mangahas joins the team in 2011, leaning into Burt Williams’s minimalist methods and John Dyson’s fanatical attention to detail. He is mentored by Bob Cabral for a year before becoming head winemaker. While much of the wine world is expanding, vinifying in 10- to 15-ton tanks, Mangahas sticks to small-barrel, micro-lot practices, vinifying just 200 cases at a time even as overall production slowly grows.

Williams Selyem purchases Saitone Ranch, bringing this 1895-planted, dry-farmed field blend of Zinfandel and more obscure varieties into the estate fold. The acquisition reflects both a return to the winery’s old-vine Zinfandel roots and a deliberate effort by John Dyson and Jeff Mangahas to keep historic, low-yielding vineyards like Saitone in the ground, even when they are less profitable than younger, more prolific sites.

Seventh-generation Burgundian vigneron Erwan Faiveley has spent a decade leading his family’s domaine, focusing on the acquisition of prized Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards in Burgundy, renovating the cellars, and adopting organic farming methods. He discusses the idea of making wine in America for the first time with his father, François, and sister, Eve.

Driven by curiosity for old-vine sites and a desire to push beyond the boundaries of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, we venture into Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon with the 2016 Beckstoffer Vineyard George III bottling from Rutherford. In 2019 and 2020 respectively, Jeff Mangahas adds two landmarks from Oakville: Beckstoffer Missouri Hopper and Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyards. Planted in the 19th century and interpreted through Williams Selyem’s low-intervention lens, these historic sites yield Cabernet Sauvignons of silken texture and finely tuned tannins.

After 23 years running Williams Selyem, John Dyson searches for a successor. A friend introduces him to Erwan Faiveley, whose family purchases a minority stake in our winery. Based in Nuits-Saint-Georges, the Faiveley family owns more than 120 hectares of vines in outstanding terroirs including 12 Grands Crus and 25 Premiers Crus. Founded in 1825, it is one of Burgundy’s most renowned domaines.

The Faiveley family assumes majority ownership of Williams Selyem. The partnership between these two houses keeps reverence for terroir and respect for tradition at the center of the story. Jeff Mangahas continues to run day-to-day winemaking, and John Dyson stays on as advisor. Much has changed, but the way the wines are made has not.

To further our commitment to small-lot winemaking, Williams Selyem adds a purpose-built production facility closer to downtown Healdsburg. The new winery is designed around function and temperature control, allowing us to handle each vineyard lot with even greater precision. The Estate winery on Westside Road continues to be our architectural landmark, working cellar, and scenic setting for visits and tastings.

The 2023 Williams Selyem “Eastside Road Neighbors” Russian River Valley Pinot Noir ranks No. 4 in Wine Spectator‘s “Top 100 Wines of the Year,” marking a rare second consecutive Top 10 appearance for this bottling. The accolade underscores how a carefully assembled Russian River Valley blend can stand alongside the most coveted single-vineyard wines in the cellar, and confirms that Williams Selyem’s vineyard-first approach is as compelling at scale as it is in micro-lots.