WINEMAKING
. . . wine . . . the intellectual part of the meal.
Williamson winemaking follows a regimen dedicated to producing "natural" wines by sustainably farming their own low-yield, high quality vineyards and permitting the natural fermentation and development of flavor while in the winery.
Our fruit is hand picked at physiological ripeness to achieve depth and richness in the finished wine. Small lot production is utilized in our winemaking facility so each lot receives the custom care required to bring it to full potential.
Williamson Wines oversea the growing of wine grapes on thirty sustainably farmed, low-yield vineyards. Our winery is located about eight miles from Healdsburg where harvested grapes are received, sorted, fermented and barrel-aged.
Our sparkling wine production takes place in Healdsburg where a modern bottling line finishes the production of our still white and red wines while automated systems handle all the processes required to produce sparkling wine in the traditional Méthode Champenoise via secondary fermentation, tirage, riddling and dosage.
Making quality still and sparkling wines requires significant investment in equipment that will be used for only a short period each year. Building a partnership with someone else who also has need of the same equipment is financially optimum so in 2010 we entered a unique partnership to share these common costs with another large winery.
Our partner winery is predominately a sparkling wine producer while we are predominately a still wine producer. Sparkling wine grapes are usually harvested early in the season while quality still wine grapes are usually harvested later, enabling us to both use the same grape receiving and processing equipment.
This partnership allows us each to manage our operations, winemaking protocols, barrel ageing, racking and blending by creating work orders that direct staff via a cloud-based software system. We direct and manage our wines throughout the various stages maintaining our own dedicated fermentation tanks and barrels and control every aspect of our winemaking from harvest to bottling.
Aside from regular shared staff who maintain our facility, cleaning tanks and barrels and executing our work orders we also share the services of four U.C. Davis graduate winemakers, each with a significant history and specific technological expertise. One is a globally-experienced fermentation scientist, specializing in the vineyard-to-wine process. A second is an acclaimed sparkling wine specialist while the third manages the day-to-day running of the winery ensuring all our work orders are faithfully executed. The forth manages the bottling line and associated processes. Each of these expert winemakers are further supported by a staff of graduate winemakers.
With all of this expertise the buck stops with Bill Williamson who is responsible for directing the overall winemaking processes as well as all wine blending and control of the entire vineyard management operations.