Bucher Vineyard sits on land the Bucher family has owned since 1958, when Joe and Annemarie Bucher arrived from Switzerland and put down roots in Healdsburg. The vineyard is farmed across three distinct blocks — Frost Hill, North Pyramid, and Saddle Block — each contributing its own character to the Pinot Noir Williams Selyem sources from the site.
John Bucher grew up on the family ranch, studied agricultural sciences at UC Davis, and came back to farm. That path — born here, trained formally, returned by choice — shows up in how the vineyard is run. John brought a studied, deliberate approach to a piece of ground his family already knew well, building a viticultural operation from the soil up. The research was careful. The planting followed. The result is a vineyard with the institutional knowledge of a multigenerational family farm and the precision of someone who chose this work on purpose. Sonoma County recognized as much when the Harvest Fair named him Outstanding Young Farmer in 2003.
Williams Selyem has sourced Pinot Noir from Bucher Vineyard since 1999. The three blocks give Jeff Mangahas distinct material to work with — different exposures, different personalities, the kind of variation within a single site that makes a vineyard worth farming carefully and worth returning to year after year.
