Pursuitist sat down with acclaimed winemaker Hélène Seillan of Sonoma’s Vérité Winery, whose visionary craftsmanship has produced some of the world’s most celebrated wines—earning an astounding 21 perfect 100-point scores from top critics. In our “Meet the Winemaker” series, we chatted all things Sonoma, luxury and more.
Pursuitist: Tell us about yourself?
Hélène Sellan: I am the assistant winemaker at Vérité Winery. My dad was the one that started Vérité in 1998, and prior to Vérité we all lived in France. Born and raised in Bordeaux, and my dad was making wines there for about 25 years for the same family, and for 7 different chateaus throughout Bordeaux. Bordeaux is a very complex area with 56 sub appellations, with many different types of soils, and different areas, with Cab mostly on the left bank, more Merlot and Cab Franc on the right bank, more whites and lighter reds in the middle, so you kind of touch on all of these different areas. After 25 years, we randomly met the Jackson family through friends in the mid 90’s, and hit it off, and Jess basically invited my dad out to check out “a few vineyards” as he said, and my dad just fell in love with California as a whole. So offered him a job, and come and make a great Merlot. They had a lot of Cabs, a lot of Pinots, and Chardonnays, but nothing using the other grapes.
Pursuitist: When did you start working at Vérité:
Hélène Sellan: I started working at Vérité in 2008 full time, and prior to that I worked in Bordeaux for a few years. Until about 2016, I really spent half my time in Sonoma County, and in Bordeaux on the right bank. So I was traveling 3 times a year back and forth. We are in the same hemisphere, so harvest happens around the same time, but typically in California it’s much hotter, so we tend to pick on the earlier side.
We are all family-owned vineyards (Jackson Family owned). We are 100% Sonoma Country, but throughout all the different appellations of Sonoma – the Chalk Hill area (which is where Vérité is based), the Alexander Valley in the mountain, the Knights Valley and then Bennett Valley, which is a cooler area. We have 4 different areas and within those areas, up to 50-60 blocks.
Pursuitist: You have a bridge between Bordeaux and Sonoma. How do you think that creates the character of your wines?
Hélène Sellan: You become great at something after experience and time. You can’t just go to school and learn something, you have to live it and do it for awhile. I’m still learning. I ‘ve been doing this for almost 20 years now, my dad is on his 55th vintage, and very busy working still, and he even says he is still learning every year. I think our experience in Bordeaux and our culture kind of defines our style. We are making wines we like to drink, and what we consider perfectly balanced. We want to make wines that are age worthy. One of the reasons my parents decided to come to California was that the Jacksons really understood long term vision, and from the very first vintage, this is not meant to be sold too quickly. We do hold a reserve, to see how these wines age with time. All these vintages from the beginning, we have a library, which is really great for our collectors. The wines are approachable young, but can age for up to 50 years and hold for decades.
Pursuitist: How important is it for you to showcase their ageability and the evolving of your wines in the luxury sector?
Hélène Sellan: It’s a luxury to be able to hold that wine. I think that’s a huge effort that has been made since the very beginning, when Vérité wasn’t famous or anything. That effort from the family was crucial.
Pursuitist: If you were not a winemaker, what would you be doing?
Hélène Sellan: I didn’t want to be a winemaker at first, because my family has been doing this for 7 generations. When your young, you are just like, I ‘m not going to do the same thing. I was very artistic, I wanted to draw, and cook. I almost went to culinary school or art school in San Francisco. By the time I was 15 or 16, I was deciding what to do, and decided to go back to France and started working in the vineyards, and completely emerged with the team. That year was super important for me. As hard as it was while I was there, the 06 vintage was pure rain, cold, and just out working in the fields. After that whole year of working out in the mud, the rain and the cold, then picking those grapes and making that wine, I never looked at a bottle of wine the same way after that.
Pursuitist: Vérité is such an intricate wine. Compared to luxury goods like watches and handbags, all the details that are involved in creating such luxury products. As the person behind creating, how do you see the parallels between 100-point wine and other luxury goods?
Hélène Sellan: When we do create the wines, we are so detailed, and think in colors and textures, which is how we build these architectures in these wines. For this level of wine, I think it’s very important to have the signature of the wine.
Pursuitist: Have you seen a lot of changes of like, people not buying as much, not drinking as much?
Hélène Sellan: No. I mean, for us at the winery, we have a pretty solid group of people that follow us, especially now that we’ve done a big renovation and have really beautiful tasting spaces. So we’ve seen a lot of traffic and a lot of people coming out. And I think Sonoma as a whole has really, you know, between the montage opening a few years ago and all these great restaurants, like we have a three Michelin star right downtown Healdsburg, it’s become really a destination. So people are coming. Our collectors are coming. It’s rare. They’re even locals. They come from all over, so they go to Napa. But what we’re so happy about is that now all the people staying in Napa actually come to Sonoma, which they didn’t used to, or they do a day trip. But now we have really nice hotels and restaurants, and there’s a whole luxury scene in Sonoma that we definitely didn’t have 20 something years ago.
Pursuitist: What’s your favorite wine when you’re home that you’re drinking?
Hélène Sellan: I honestly just kind of drink I make, or what my neighbors make? There is a French expression- It’s always the shoemaker is always wearing the worst shoes.
Pursuitist: With the perfect wine scores and the newly remodeled estate, what does the next pinnacle for you look like for the next upcoming years? Is there any like new things happening in the craft, new things you’re doing, anything you’re striving to do?
Hélène Sellan: You know, when you get to inherit something like this, like this job, I’m just spending as much time as I can to really perfect this and not get too crazy just because I’ve worked 15 years or 20 years? I want to make sure that I really respect these wines and how they’re made, and respect the style, because when the day comes at my death and I’m no longer is here, I want to make sure that it’s very smooth transition in terms of not the work part, that part’s easy for us, but in terms of what the wine is. So for me, that’s my that’s my goal right now. It’s not to reach another anything. My goal is consistency and and that for me, because, you know, we’re fairly young. We’ve only been around for 28 years, and that’s not a long time. And I think I’m careful. You know, I was always taught to just be careful with trends and careful being bored, you know, because you can easily want to get distracted and while they’re doing this. And we could do this, and that’s the thing in the county and with the laws here, because we can do so much, and, you know, there aren’t so many restrictions like there are like there are in Bordeaux. We’re not framed. You could easily get off track. So for me, it’s very important to actually stay very focused and keeping these wines what they’re meant to be.
To learn more about Vérité Winery, click here.
