1997 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (42) Avg Score: 91.9 points

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  2/18/2024 - misterstarre Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Dark, rich red fruit underlined with faint citrus, tar, perfect structure. Low tannin, medium plus acid, such focused, intense fruit despite nothing too ripe or alcoholic going on. It's incredible how they achieve this purity of fruit at this level without too much sugar or alcohol. Marvelous. Drink.

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  1/3/2023 - misterstarre Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Such a pretty, refined, silky, resolved wine. This medium weight WS leads with briary fruit -- ripe cherry, berry compote, with some orange zest -- and some light baking spice, tar, and a slight herbal touch (not green so much as aromatic), plus a flowery perfumy nose, and a light finish of fruit and flowers cleaned up with the wine's ample acid. This wine demonstrates a feature of the Burt era Williams Selyems -- that their initial fruitiness has softened and kept fresh by acid, and in this vintage, alcohol, without falling apart or tasting cooked. They are not hugely complex wines (they show very little earth), but they are pure, focused, balanced, and developed. Plus they do feature intriguing tertiary notes -- garrigue, orange zest, roasted strawberry, baking spice, and once in a while, mushroom.
  They share something in common with Rayas and Pignan. Pure. Easy to drink. Deeply rewarding. Elegant. Focused.

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  12/6/2020 - blisscompound Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Another great marker point in my wine career; to have tasted the original Williams Selyem Pinot Noir made by the legend Burt Williams RIP. His last vintage at Williams Selyem is 1997 after selling his eponymous winery for some $8 million in 1996. I’ve heard and read stories plenty about this character, about a visionary forefather of championing Pinot Noir in Sonoma, a cold harsh coastal climate. He helped create a movement so powerful that at times I feel it is beyond cliche; California Pinot. This bottle blew all expectations I could have had of it. In fact some part of me doubted it to begin with and at first aroma it was obvious that the legend is in the juice. The legend had actually lived up to what was in my glass. When I saw this wine at auction the first time I passed it up because I just couldn’t believe it. If the legends are true why would anybody even be selling this?! Williams Selyem nowadays is just so overdone and I don’t want to drink it. How much better could burt’s version be? Thankful to @garymenes for sharing his confidence about Burt’s wines. The miraculous second time I saw this at auction I did not pass it up. This right here was wizard juice. In and of itself it confirms just how special wine can be made. Easily the single greatest California Pinot I have ever had the privilege of tasting. Thankful to be here for this. 🙏🏼

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  11/6/2019 - misterstarre Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Clear, dark ruby from the edge to the core. A touch darker than I've come to expect from WS from this era. There is an almost Rhone meets Margaux quality going on here, by which I mean the nose imparts a ton of perfume, some white pepper, with California's version of garrigue (sage, lavender, generic underbrush), and white pepper, plus, of course, some plum and red berry. The perfume element started off a touch astringent, but softened with a little time. The fruit may have once been voluptuous, but no longer. This wine started off almost tannic (for a 22 year old pinot, not for wine generally, and certainly nothing that would compare to a cab). The palate matched the nose, so I won't repeat those notes again, but I will add that you get some dark cherry on the palate, as well. However, whereas the aroma was fulsome, the mouthfeel and flavor on this were more restrained and elegant. A lightly sweet beurre monte with carraway in an accompanying pasta dish really brought out this wine's full potential by playing with latent sweetness and and that slight peppery note, whereas with a mushroom course I thought would make this sing revealed that deep earthiness was wanting. And with a fatty meat course this kind of disappeared, as you'd expect of a lightly tannic, resolved pinot made in an elegant style that was never meant for such a pairing to begin with.

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  1/20/2017 - Blake Brown Likes this wine: 94 Points

  1997 WILLIAMS SELYEM HIRSCH VINEYARD PINOT NOIR- medium dark red color; talc and baking spices accent the red and black cherry with a strong hint of maraschino as well; there was a distinct difference between this and the 96`, both super good and different; this bottle was in beautiful balance, had that classic silky texture and a sustained finish.

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