#10 on PRIMA's Top 25 Wines of 2025

Ground shipping included on 6 bottles or more

No one knows the Russian River Valley quite like the gang at Williams Selyem. This ultra-important Healdsburg winery was the first to create audiences for the grapes of now-iconic vineyards like Rochioli, Olivet Lane, Ferrington, Hirsch, Bacigalupi and Allen, even as they developed their own well-regarded estate vineyards all over the Sonoma Coast. So popular are the wines we used to call ‘Will Sell’ that the winery once had to create a waiting list just to get on their waiting list!

PRIMA has been a customer of Williams Selyem since we both started the business—now over 48 years ago—despite the winery never having a traditional wholesale program. We buy the wines for the same price as the winery mailing list, making them not only some of the best wines available in the market, but also some of the most expensive. That being said, once in a while, thanks to our longstanding relationship, and when the winery has enough wine in the cellar, we get offered a bit of something special at what would be considered a more typical wholesale price, something we can offer by-the-glass at the wine bar and to a few special customers—like you!

Enter the 2023 Williams Selyem Pinot Noir Russian River Selection, a special selection of the winery’s benchmark Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. This cuvee is the winery’s blended Pinot Noir from all of the sites they either purchase from or grow themselves, some of the very best Pinot Noir vineyards on both the eastern and western sides of the valley. This is the apotheosis of the art of Pinot Noir blending, a collection of disparate sites woven into a gorgeous, fully integrated whole. Like all Williams Selyem wines, the 2023 Pinot RRV Selection is built on copious, expressive and very sexy red and blue fruit with floral and cinnamon spice aromatics that give way to a plush but very fresh palate. The finish shows the forest floor, freshly shoveled loam character so prized in the world’s best Pinots, creating an overall impression of completeness and integrity.

All Williams Selyem wines are shipped complete with instructions warning you not to drink them too young, but this has really grown into itself in the few months we’ve had it at the bar. Even though another three or five years will improve it, we say drink some now!