I`ve been blessed to have known and been befriended by an icon in the winemaking world, Burt Williams. The blessing first comes from knowing him as a fine individual and the second is that he happens to have made world class wines that I love dearly and have been drinking since the early 1980s to this day.
The history of this famous winery is so intriguing and tells such a great story of a couple of friends who wanted to make and drink great wine and puled it off.
While recently perusing some old mailers for “Williams & Selyem” [their legal name], I came across a writeup by Ed Selyem providing some history and background of the winery and its principles in their March, 1994 mailer. Here is some excerpts with a small amount of editing shown in parenthesis:
“The winery started up legally in 1981. [they started in 79 using a label named Hacienda del Rio in reference to Burts house on the Russian River which created a legal challenge with another winery named Hacienda Wine Cellars and they had to change their label and chose Williams Selyem in 84` [as sated above, the legal name was Williams & Selyem], Burt personally made the label which is still used today using his type setting skills]
Burt was a home grape winemaker and myself a home beer and fruit winemaker. Burt and I continued to raise our families and pay for our houses using our income from his job in the city at the paper [as a printer/ type setter] and mine as a wine buyer etc. at a store. Burt`s desire was to make world class wine and mine to create a successful business from local agriculture. We started with no capital, [each contributed $5,000 out of pocket] never borrowed and grew 25% every year by starting very small and plowing all income back into the business. We were fortunate to successfully contact the very best growers who were not only growing the best fruit in America, but were great folks to work with.
The grapes are constantly checked by us in fall until they are ready, hand sorted here, fermented in double walled, stainless steel, recycled open top dairy tanks. The skins are lightly pressed. The wine is gravity racked, never sees filtration, fining or a pump. The best French oak barrels in the world are used, [Francois Freres] in balance with the strength of the fruit. The wine is hand bottled labeled and foiled. As well as inspected visually and internally regularly.
Early on, we sold mostly to other winemakers and retailers with good palates. Sweepstakes winnings at the State fair alerted the press to the wine. The more we made and the more press that followed caused a snow ball effect in demand.
Finally, Howard Allen [of Allen Vineyard and who was introduced to Burt and Ed by Joe Rochioli in 87] built us a winery building on his ranch and we moved out of our fixed up garage in December 89. Since then, we only work here full time and our next generation [on Burt`s side was son, Fred {Seven Lions} and daughter Margaret {Brogan Cellars}] has been getting more and more involved in helping. We sell 85% of our wine directly to individuals who we enjoy being in contact with and learning from. The remaining 15% of our wine is sold to the retailers and restaurants that helped get us here.”
There is a much longer version of their history that I will include separately as Part Two.
The mailers that Ed and Burt sent out usually included brief winemaking insights and helpful suggestions as to how to handle their wines. I find many to be so interesting and to be way ahead of the time and will include some of them in Part Three.
Cheers,
Blake
