While San Benito County is known for its many world-class wineries, those outside the industry might not be aware of the vineyards that are producing grapes for some of the biggest names in winemaking.
These private vineyards grow grapes to sell to wineries around the state, often for no greater public glory than to have their name or their region mentioned on a label. Others, like the Vista Verde Vineyard in Paicines, sell most of their grapes to major wineries but hold back a small percentage to release on their own specialty labels.
Vista Verde began in the 1960s as a 200-acre winery owned by food conglomerate Heublein. Wine innovator John Dyson purchased the property, known as Pebble Ridge, in 1990 and expanded it to 850 acres.
“We pretty much pulled out everything,” said vineyard manager Miguel Alvarado. “There was wide spacing and older vines with very low productivity. We put in 300 acres of pinot noir, 200 acres of chardonnay, 100 acres of pinot gris, and some merlot and cabernet sauvignon.”
About 90% of the grapes grown there are sold to some of the biggest names in wine including Constellation, Robert Mondavi, Estancia, Clos du Bois, Mark West, Ernest & Julio Gallo, Kendall Jackson and J. Lohr.
But the remaining 10% go to Dyson’s prestigious Williams Selyem label, with Vista Verde being one of the five vineyards used in the production of his wines.
Alvarado has been working at the vineyard for 28 years, starting when he was 18. Arriving from Mexico and speaking no English, he started working as an irrigator. His supervisor encouraged him to take English as a Second Language classes at Gavilan College and eventually he studied viticulture at UC-Davis.
Alvarado began working closely with Dyson, who he refers to as “my personal grape doctor. He taught me pretty much everything. It was my hard work ethic that got me here, but if you don’t come across the right boss it can be very hard to succeed.”
While Alvarado carefully monitors the entire vineyard to ensure a quality harvest for its many customers, the grapes intended for Williams Selyem receive extra attention to guarantee they will be perfect for their high-end wines.
“It is a little bit about altitude and row orientation,” he said, “but it is also how you manage the grapes. We try to stay as organic as we can and they need very intensive practices to grow to the quality we want.”
Sometimes things go wrong, as they did in the aftermath of last year’s fires, which saw a large volume of grapes discarded because of smoke damage. There is no second act for sub-standard grapes.
“It is a two-edged sword,” Alvarado said. “You are growing the grapes to sell them but you need to be sure they are the quality your customers expect.”
Williams Selyem’s limited production of wine, intended to maintain superior quality, makes their products difficult to find. They are available almost exclusively to their wine list customers who get a chance twice a year to place orders. Customers receive priority based on seniority and buying patterns: long-term customers who always buy their allotments might be lucky enough to see those allotments increase.
Besides the wine list, a small percentage about 5% of their production goes to restaurants that pay full retail price for the honor of stocking these fine wines.
Given the general unavailability of these wines, I felt privileged to discuss and taste them with Alvarado. We sampled four wines and they were uniformly remarkable.
The wines of Williams Selyem Winery
2019 Vista Verde Late Harvest Gewurztraminer The aroma of this wine is superb, one of the most intensely fragrant wines I have ever had. It’s sweetly floral with a hint of citrus and peaches. You get a little burst of natural sweetness from the grapes with your first sip, which smooths out with a note of rose petals, only to return at the end. It has a slightly thick mouthfeel, almost syrupy, that does not linger, drifting off cleanly with an engaging finish. This is a wine to serve cold, with smoked turkey sandwiches on sourdough bread.
2019 Limestone Ridge Chenin Blanc The fruit aroma here is more subdued than the wildly scented Gewurztraminer and the wine itself is more subtle. There is a fruit/citrus acidity that is part peaches and part lime with a good minerality in the finish. Alvarado says the secret to this wine is aggressive pruning, holding the vines to a bit over three tons when they naturally want to produce 10 tons. “You need to do that to get a good concentration of flavor,” he said, “Otherwise it is too watery. You also don’t want to flood them—you almost want to spoon feed them water.” The alcohol comes in at 13.8%, but you don’t really sense it because of the acidity cutting through to the palate. This is an afternoon picnic wine, something you want to drink while you sit in the shade and watch the dogs play in the sprinklers. It would also be excellent with ceviche or grilled chicken.
2018 Vista Verde Pinot Noir This wine begins with an almost water-smooth mouthfeel, with a complex fruitiness in the middle and ending with a bit of dryness. The craftsmanship shines as the wine flows through your mouth with no assertiveness that gets in the way of a relaxed enjoyment. This is a perfect dinner wine that would hold its own with almost anything you would want to serve it with. It’s not an aggressive wine, though, and spicy foods would easily overwhelm the delicate flavors. Prime rib and mushroom-parmesan risotto would pair nicely, but you could also sip this with a nibble of dark chocolate.
2019 Central Coast Pinot Noir The grapes for this wine come from the same vineyard as the Vista Verde Pinot, but are a mix of clones rather than a single designate. Produced a year later from different vines, what struck me most about this wine is how amazingly consistent it was with the 2018 vintage. I kept going back and forth between them trying to discern the very subtle differences. It has a bit more fruit, I think, and a bit more dryness than the 2018 pinot, but is just as smooth and easy to drink. Again, I give the edge to the 2018 pinot but the pure elegance of both wines makes them almost impossible to choose between the two.
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