History
Almaden Vineyards was among the first of the big companies to move south into San Benito County, planting some 2,000 acres around Paicines, mostly Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, and petitioning both the Paicines AVA (1982) and the San Benito AVA that contains it (1987) into existence. The roughly 500-acre Vista Verde parcel belonged to that empire until the company was sold and split up in the 1980s, after which the ground passed through Heublein and Diageo. In 1990 John Dyson, a Cornell-trained agriculturist, former New York state official who helped launch the I Love New York campaign, and founder of Millbrook Vineyards in the Hudson Valley, bought Vista Verde as a 200-acre vineyard. His Pebble Ridge Vineyards has since grown the holding past 850 acres through contiguous purchases, alongside the named blocks Renz, Schwabacher and Bisceglia, and replanted it entirely. The Dysons bought Williams Selyem from Burt Williams and Ed Selyem in 1998; the winery's Vista Verde Pinot Noir bottlings date from the 2000 vintage.
The Site
Rolling hills near Tres Pinos, a few miles southeast of Hollister, at 700 to 1,000 feet in the San Benito AVA. The Pacific lies only 20 to 30 miles west, and marine air working through the gaps in the mountains gives a long, cool growing season with wide day-night swings, rare this far inland. The soils are the argument for the place: gravel, rock and pebbles laced with lenses of calcium carbonate and lime, fast draining, and in Williams Selyem's account the source of the wine's supple texture and mineral impression. Labels split on geography: I. Brand prints the nested Paicines AVA, while Williams Selyem and Ernest use the broader San Benito County.
Vines and Blocks
The Williams Selyem section runs 7.6 acres under vineyard manager Miguel Alvarado: Pinot Noir in clones 96.1 and 122.1 alongside Calera, Martini and Swan selections, on 161-49 rootstock, trained to bilateral cordon and to the Smart-Dyson system the owner co-developed. Gewurztraminer grows alongside the Pinot. The wider ranch carries more than fifteen varieties and nineteen Pinot Noir clones: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Tocai Friulano, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot for a grape-client list that has included Mondavi, Estancia, Gallo, Joel Gott, J. Lohr and Kendall-Jackson, plus a small west-facing Arneis block at about 800 feet on gravelly soil with calcareous fractures, and Chenin Blanc.
The Wines
Williams Selyem's Vista Verde Pinot Noir is the flagship, typically supple in texture with the flinty, mineral cast the house attributes to the limestone. The winery has also drawn a Late Harvest Gewurztraminer from the site across recent vintages, a Chenin Blanc in 2011, and a Port between 2009 and 2014. The Chenin now feeds a run of small designates: Ernest, Methode Sauvage, Rococo and Lyndon Fog Cellars have all printed the vineyard's name on it, and I. Brand bottles the Arneis. No source supports the persistent claim that Calera or Josh Jensen ever owned this vineyard; the confusion stems from the Calera clone planted here and from Calera's actual estate on distant Mount Harlan.