Williams Selyem Winemaker Jeff Mangahas

California Wine Country

Jeff Mangahas

Winemaker Jeff Mangahas from Williams Selyem Winery is back on California Wine Country with Steve Jaxon today. Jeff has been on this show a few times before, the most recent was this episode from last March.

Williams Selyem produces a limited quantity of wine in the Russian River Valley, primarily Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Most of their wines come from a single vineyard and so they express varietal and terroir characteristics. While Williams Selyem wines are very famous among well-informed wine enthusiasts, it does not have enough production for its fame to be as widespread as others who make more product and can get it out into more places. Dan Berger calls Williams Selyem, “…one of Sonoma County’s greatest wines.”

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The founders Ed Selyem and Burt Williams were early garagistes making wine in the late ‘70s. They came out with the 1985 Rocchioli Vineyard bottling that won the California State Fair Sweepstakes in 1987. After that, demand shot up and they had to allocate individual bottles of wine to people.

Jeff’s first career was as a cancer research biologist with a degree in molecular biology from University of Washington. He became curious about wine while living in the pacific northwest. Wanting to try something different, he took a degree from UC Davis in viticulture and enology and has been working in the Russian River Valley since then.

They make many individual bottlings of single vineyard varietals, and Jeff is happy that he gets to work with the same top quality vineyards year after year. “Greatness in the bottle starts with greatness in the vineyard.” Because they are a vineyard-designate specialist, each wine has a unique profile that is a reflection of the location.