My comments were not to discourage from including it herein so please do and thanks so much.
Burt always said to drink his wines five to ten years after the vintage date and then he made wines that improved for forty years.
One thing Burt and Ed did: they always wanted the best and were willing to pay for it. I remember the tussle they had with Olivet Lane, whose vineyard manager thought it was against God’s law to drop fruit. They wanted the best grapes they could get and were ready to foot the bill.
Unlike many winemakers of the early '80s, Burt understood that wine was like a human, in that it went through stages. Every January I tasted wine out of barrel with him. The new wine was a planky awkward mess…the older wine that was going to be bottled…fantastic. He knew that just because the baby cried didn’t mean the kid wouldn’t be ready for school some day.
Sorry for your loss Blake.
Yes, William, please do post the technical details. I am no winemaker, just an enthusiast, but it would be fascinating to read and discuss the technical details behind what made Burt’s wines so special.
Interview with Burt Williams
BW: [Tasting the ’88 Summa Pinot Noir] It came in at 21.5 brix, but in the tank the next day it soaked up to 22. So it’s 12% alcohol.
WK: So what drew you to the Sonoma Coast? I’ve read that the attraction was partly the lag in ripening between there and the RRV where you were already established.
BW: Yes, the main thing for us was to get the Russian River Valley in the condition it need to be, and it took us a little while to do that, and then once that was done, we had time to start looking around at Sonoma Coast, Anderson Valley, and various other places. Found some places on the Sonoma Coast that were good, a place in Anderson Valley that we liked, so we could use the fermenters a second time, we could use all of our equipment twice. So the Russian River Valley would be usually in the tank or in the barrel by the time these other vineyards came in, which was just perfect for us.
Or at least most years. In 1996 it all came at once. It was hectic. Partly it was a less foggy year, partly it was a warm year. Everything just seemed to ripen at once. Every place. Luckily we just had enough room. As soon as we’d empty a tank, it’d be refilled that day.
WK: Right. Sometimes people who haven’t been involved in the production side of wine making don’t appreciate the degree to which logistical factors can determine ultimate quality.
BW: Especially if you’re dealing with small vineyards and you have to have special sized tanks for each vineyard. It’s all planning and decision making, and sometimes you have to blend something you didn’t want to blend.
WK: Did you bottle on the premises?
BW: Yes we did, always, right from the start. I wanted to have my hands on through the whole winemaking process, I didn’t want to give up something to somebody else and expect them to do the same job I would.
WK: And you bottled by hand?
BW: In the beginning. We had an automatic corking machine from early on, because a friend of mine had done some design work for Chalone, and they had given it to him. It was a massive machine.
WK: So why Pinot? And why Russian River? Because there weren’t that many people producing Pinot at a high level in RRV, or elsewhere in the United States back then.
BW: I liked it.
There were people making it. Some of them like Tom Dehlinger were doing a pretty good job. There weren’t too many others besides him that were doing a real good job. Once in a while, by mistake, one would come out that would be pretty good, then the next year it would fall right back down to a so-so level.
WK: So people were succeeding by accident…
BW: Yeah, and that happened all throughout the state. So when we started, I just wanted to get the best vineyards that we could; and at that time you could get the best vineyards, because no one was doing it. So I got the Rocchioli Vineyard and the Allen Vineyard lined up, and those things helped us tremendously at the start. Joe Rocchioli helped a lot, just his knowledge of the grapes: the thing I didn’t know, he did know. That worked wonders for us. Then we just went low tech, tried to make wine like they made wine fifty years before, but using scientific technology—we were running our numbers.
WK: So how were you making your picking decisions? Because it seems like a lot of people in RRV are picking at a rather more elevated level of maturity these days.
BW: I think so. When we picked we would go through the vineyard three or four times in a matter of two or three days, in the period when the grapes were starting to ripen, and I’d wait till… when I was picking I was picking mostly on my taste, so I’d wait to see the seeds separate from the membranes, and the seeds to start turning brown a little bit, usually, and just wait until the fruit seemed to be ripe and not overripe. I don’t like overripe fruit. I like to have acidity, I like the pH to be good; if you wait to long your pH fries, you acidity drops to hell.
WK: It seems like your wines always have a very healthy pH, I’d guess in the region of pH 3.5-6?
BW: Yeah. This is pH 3.6, finished, and 0.63% tritratable acidity. It was 0.99% and pH 3.2 when it was harvested.
WK: And then you would mostly de-stem?
BW: It would depend on the stems, and on the clones, but particularly if the stem had coloration. If it was really green we de-stemmed basically everything. If it looked good, tasted good, had some spicy character, we would use maybe 25-33% whole cluster.
WK: And then you had your own yeast strain.
BW: Yes, from ’84, we had it isolated, from a Martinelli Zinfandel vineyard.
WK: Was that just because it was such a successful strain?
BW: Well, this is a vineyard that was planted in 1905; the same man took care of the vineyard every year, made wine from the vineyard every year, put the pomace back on the vineyard every year; so this was a very strong yeast strain that was established for fifty years out there. It was really good, strong yeast; it would take a fermentation to 18% alcohol, so it’d take it dry. And I found that the flavours that you got with it were very nice, with a lot of fruit. You had to watch it, sometimes it got too hot, just cool it down. We just turned the cooling jacket on for two or three hours, then turn it off, sort of baby it a bit.
WK: And was there a cold soak at the beginning?
BW: Usually, three-four days cold soak, never much longer, and no post-fermentation maceration. And then punch-downs four times a day, every six hours. Fermentations would last about 11-15 days.
WK: So how did you discover Summa?
BW: I was trying to think of that today. I don’t remember if they contacted me or if I contact them. I think Paul Young contacted us. I took a look at it, and we decided it looked good to us.
So every year, we made Summa, but I only had an ‘88 a ‘91 and a ‘95 as a vineyard designate. Sometimes there was just no colour, it was too light, or there was too much rot or mildew. We stayed with it because I knew when it came in ripe it was amazing, but my partner kept wanting to drop it.
WK: So what shaped your personal taste?
BW: Well I was familiar with Burgundies. We started making wine when they became too expensive. Really, it was getting beyond my grasp.
I love Zinfandel too, but Pinot Noir would just always for some reason appeal to me. And once in a while you would find that great Californian Pinot Noir, but most of the time I preferred French wine.
WK: tell us about the label.
BW: A friend of mine was a master book printer, he printed a lot of books—the White Rabbit Press—his name was Graham Mackintosh. He was a very talented typesetter and pressman. So when we needed a new label, I took it to him and said, ‘Graham can you make us a label’. He said, ‘I’ve never done that before’, so I said, ‘You’ve done title pages: I want a title page’. He would print them. So it was all hot metal, and correct printing process, that’s why our labels in books and things always photograph so good, because it’s the first time it’s ever been done, it’s not like it’s an offset label—when it’s a first generation, then a second generation, then a third generation, a photograph… This one (pointing at the bottle) is first generation. That was knowing my craft, and applying it to the label.
WK: Rather like you knew your craft when it came to the wines…
BW: Yes, everything at the top level, from the label to the bottle to the boxes. I wanted everything as nice and as good as possible. We bought all French glass, the best corks we could buy, tried to do everything right, every little thing too. There are so many things from tasting the grape to sorting it, in tank, then selecting at the press, and after just topping off; so much picking and selection throughout the process.
WK: Did you use the press wine for topping?
BW: No, I would leave maybe a 7 gallon space in the barrel when we were barrelling down the free run, and then the press would go into the barrel; I thought it sponsored a better malolactic, a more full ML. And a lot of the press, being whole berries, you know, carbonic maceration, so there was still some sugar in there, which would go into the barrel and finish up, then the malolactic would take over. I always had full malolactics and the wine was always dry.
WK: And did you inoculate for ML?
BW: Yes, every year. Some people don’t, but I didn’t want volatile acidity. Yeah, MCW and ML-34 for Pinot Noir. For Chardonnay and for Zinfandel I used 44-40, which is another malolactic bug, which I used to have to get from Terry Leighton, he kept it on hand.
WK: So your wines were always very nicely ripe and have beautiful fruit tones, but it seems like some people in RRV are pushing ripeness a bit further these days?
BW: Well, there are some people who have always picked a bit later: Tom Dehlinger’s wines were always a bit darker, more plum-like.
WK: And they age really well…
BW: Yes, they age really well. That’s how he likes his wines. I like my wines to have a bit more of a cherry-strawberry, to be a little more acidic, so it depends on the wine maker, a lot of it, on how you want it. Luckily here in California you can get it the way you want it.
WK: Do you think it would be possible, with climate change, to make wines in the same style that you made them in RRV back in the day?
BW: I don’t know. Probably, if you were really careful, and working with really good vineyards. It’d be easier to work with Sonoma Coast. And Anderson Valley. Those are cool areas…. A friend of ours works for Noah: she says Michigan’s probably the next place! (laughter)
WK: So when you were making those wines in the Sonoma Coast, did they behave differently during the fermentation at all?
BW: No, exactly the same.
WK: But obviously the fruit character is very different…
BW: Yes, sort of blood orange. And Sandalwood. And exotic spices—Chinese spices. I was looking at my notes on the ’88, and I used the word exotic a lot.
So we made 110 cases of this. Back then there were no young and old vines.
So it was never a big vineyard. Then he took out half the vines and planted chestnuts, and he had the chestnuts for five or six years, then he took them out and planted vines again. I mean, who wants chestnuts? Like there’s a big market for chestnuts.
WK: So was the Thieriot Vineyard planted opposite at that stage?
BW: Yeah. Probably the first fruit of the Thieriot Vineyard was ’94, I’d have to look at my notes, but we got that vineyard as soon as they got some fruit. He wanted me to vineyard designate it every year, but I never did, it went into the Sonoma Coast. I told him it wasn’t ready to be a vineyard designate; he had a tremendously large ego, couldn’t understand why we couldn’t vineyard designate.
WK: So you spent a lot of time reading 19th-century winemaking texts?
BW: Yes, it’s a real repository of forgotten knowledge. Mostly I used some of the old books on California winemaking. That was not Pinot Noir, but the process is similar. There were a couple I used to take out of the library.
And I got advice from old Italian winemakers who had been doing it a very long time.
One of my mentors was Walt Walters at Lytton Springs. They made big, dark zins, and we used to compare our zins all the time; but there was always 20% petite sirah planted in their vineyard, and if you have petite sirah in there you’re going to have a dark wine. He would always kid me about the color, and I’d just tell him, ‘it’s zinfandel, not petite sirrah’. He was a good winemaker, and he had been a Navy chef for seven years, so his thing was to have everything sparkling, and he would come over and say, ‘you need to clean it again, clean it, clean it again’. So we cleaned it again… It can’t be too clean.
WK: What advice would you give to people looking to set up a wine label?
BW: Don’t buy too many new things, the old things work fine, you just have to work on them a little bit sometimes, but it’s a lot cheaper. That’s what I was told at the beginning and it’s true. We didn’t even have any new barrels until ’84, we used to buy used barrels and have them scraped. In ’84, one of our customers asked what would make the wines better, and I said, new barrels, so he wrote me a cheque to buy new barrels.
(tasting) so not too bad for a twenty-seven year old wine. And people say American Pinot Noir doesn’t age.
I haven’t had a bottle of this in at least ten years.
WK: And has the aging potential surprised you even?
BW: No. If you make balanced wines they tend to age well; if you’ve got them in balance. That was my whole thing, making balanced wines. A lot of people said when they got the wine they would drink it right away, and they thought it wouldn’t age because you could drink it right away; but if the wine’s in balance you can drink it right away.
We were very precise about when we picked the fruit; we would take five gallon buckets of samples, run the pH and TA, and depending on how we liked the flavour at the time, and you could see the progression of the vineyard as it was ripening and project when you wanted to pick. Luckily with the Russian River fruit, especially with the Rocchioli and the Allen, Joe would pick within 24 hours. Usually I could give him three days, but there were times when I said, we gotta get it off tomorrow Joe, and he would say okay. That was very good, and most of my growers worked pretty much that way.
WK: You seem to have developed strong relationships with your growers, and I guess your success brought them success.
BW: Yes, we worked with pretty much the same growers for a long period. And yes, I know they made a lot more money for their fruit by the end than when we started.
(tasting) Yes, this will go on for a few more years, I’m looking forward to the my last bottle. This is the penultimate bottle. I don’t think I have any magnums.
We made ten cases and ten magnums.
The only time we would sell magnums was when a good customer told us about a birthday or an anniversary or something like that.
Awesome
Thanks William, that was super. TRB and I had an 88 WS Summa a few years back, I was shocked how good it still was.
Chestnuts!?!?!?!? That was a crazy tidbit.
Much appreciated William. Great info, some of which I had and some new. Im opening up an 86 Sonoma County tonight to honor Burt. It’s got a lot of Summa in it plus Rochioli East Block and Allen. Why this one? It’s the oldest WS bottle I have and Burt encouraged me to buy it in auction a few months ago. It came in a 3 pack.
Should a separate thread be initiated to include some history of Burt, Hacienda del Rio and on, your interview should be added as well. TBD
Thanks Blake and William for everything you have shared about Burt. That is one awesome transcription - you get a real sense of the man.
Respect and Rest In Peace.
Thanks Blake and William for the nice tributes. You do get a real sense of his passion reading all of this.
Thanks, William…a great read!!
I didn’t know the man but these comments have been great to read about his legacy. I popped a bottle in his honor tonight, albeit not made during his watch but still my way to honor a great man. The wine is fantastic by the way!
I first fell in love with Pinot Noir when a friend introduced me to some of the early Kosta Browne bottlings, my friends from Kepler Vineyards sold grapes to them at the time. Shortly after that I had my first bottle of Williams Selyem around 2007 ? I can’t remember which bottling it was but it knocked my socks off. About 6 years later I met Burt Williams at a wine event at Fort Ross. Very nice guy, talked with everyone and was very personable that day. At that point I’d never had a Burt Williams wine but this past August I won a 1994 Hirsch Vineyard bottling from WineBid. This coming holiday, I will be sitting this up and getting into possibly the only Burt Williams bottle of wine I might ever taste. Thank you for what you gave to us and unquestionably fueling my obsession with Pinot Noir.
Rest in paradise Burt, maybe the wines flow and the food be monsterously good!
Beautiful tribute, here. Burt inspired many winemakers (myself included) and was clearly a gracious man.
Around 2011 a sweet woman named Jan dropped by our tiny tasting room in Occidental, and expressed interest in staffing part-time, for fun. But we didn’t need help at the time. Luckily I was there a couple weeks later when she came again with her husband (Burt).
It took a moment for me to realize which Burt I was being introduced to. Two generations his junior and a stranger to him otherwise he, without pretension, started right in about Sonoma wines and Pinot clones. He treated me like a friend and peer—we shared a wonderful talk.
I sent Jan and him with a gift bottle of our Taylor Pinot - just down the road from his Summa - which he seemed quite nostalgic about. Burt returned a week later, and generously left his card and this bottle of ‘09 Morning Dew. It’s been on my kitchen sill since.
Great story and another beautiful share of how special and unpretentious this guy was. Thanks for this and enjoy the 09` MDR. It’s still just a pup.
BTW, Jan passed in 2011 so this must have been just prior.
Good move to get the 94` Hirsch. It’s singing a nice tune now. Please post a note.
In 1995 I was part of a group of enology students that toured dry creek area during spring break. Each day we were hosted by 3-4 wineries including rochioli, rafanelli, Preston, etc. I thought it strange when arriving to Williams selyem which still was just the non assuming “shed” however the pinots to me were the highlight of the trip and really my aha moment in wine
I am sorry for the loss of your friend Blake and although I rarely respond have truly enjoyed reading your posts over time
Thank you for responding this time Timmy and for sharing another great story about the man and his wines.
Blake, I’m very sorry for yours and the wine world’s loss. I very much enjoyed reading your tribute.