Willliams Selyem
Bob Cabral

Bob Cabral’s enthusiasm for winemaking is contagious; he sums up his attitude in one statement. “We can’t just create a great wine, it has to be SPECTACULAR!” Working at Williams Selyem is a dream realized for this fourth generation California winemaker who, on the advice of a friend in 1984, used part of his student loan to buy his allocation from a then fledging, unknown winery in the Russian River Valley run by Ed Selyem and Burt Williams. The first vintage he tasted was the 1982 and it was at that point Bob knew that Burt and Ed were onto something special. What he didn’t foresee, however, was that 14 years later, he would be carrying forward the legacy of the country’s most sought after Pinot Noir wines.

Bob grew up in Escalon, California, an area widely known as the nation’s fruit basket. The son of a fourth generation family farmer and grape grower, Bob’s father was Portuguese and his mother Irish, and as a family they truly loved living amidst the lush backdrop of the Northern Central Valley.

Bob brings to Williams Selyem a historical perspective with winemaking in Sonoma County. While studying for his enology degree at Fresno State, he and his roommates would not only taste wines from around the world, but they often spent weekends driving up to Napa and Sonoma to taste wines and query winemakers.