Williams Selyem Olivet Lane Pinot Noir 2019
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir Olivet Lane Vineyard has lush aromas of wild berry preserves, blood orange, potpourri, aniseed and dusty earth. The medium-bodied palate is layered and pure, with a gentle grainy grip, refreshing acidity and expansive, spicy fruit on the long finish. It's lovely straight from bottle but will age well over the next decade.
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Wine Spectator
Refined, juicy and minerally, with a savory cut to dark cherry and berry flavors that are rich with forest floor accents. Iodine and Asian spice notes on the crisp finish. Drink now through 2025.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Just a little drawn back with respect to concentration and sheer fruity volume as it most always is and a Pinot that, as is typical of Williams Selyem Olivet Lane offerings, shows a slightly lighter step overall, the 2019 version features dusty red cherries framed by sweet and sympathetic oak and keys on balance rather than extract and heft. That said, it is still a wine that needs time to fully unfold, and, if easy enough to enjoy in the coming year, it will have far more to say if allowed to quietly rest for some five or six years.
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Williams Selyem Winery began as a simple dream of two friends, Ed Selyem and Burt Williams, who pursued weekend winemaking as a hobby in 1979 in a garage in Forestville, California, and made their first commercial vintage in 1981. In less than two decades, Burt and Ed created a cult-status winery of international acclaim. Together they set a new standard for Pinot Noir winemaking in the United States, aligning Sonoma County's Russian River Valley in the firmament of the best winegrowing regions of the world. Today John and Kathe Dyson, who purchased the winery from Burt and Ed in 1998, carry on the passion for Pinot Noir winemaking without compromise. As for the wines... they just keep getting better and better.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Home to a diverse array of smaller AVAs with varied microclimates and soil types, Sonoma County has something for every wine lover. Physically twice as large as Napa Valley, the region only produces about half the amount of wine but boasts both tremendous quality and variety. With its laid-back atmosphere and down-to-earth attitude, the wineries of Sonoma are appreciated by wine tourists for their friendliness and approachability. The entire county intends to become a 100% sustainable winegrowing region by 2019.
Sonoma County wines are produced with carefully selected grape varieties to reflect the best attributes of their sites—Dry Creek Valley’s consistent sunshine is ideal for Zinfandel, while the warm Alexander Valley is responsible for rich, voluptuous red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are important throughout the county, most notably in the cooler AVAs of Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Carneros. Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Syrah have also found a firm footing here.