Healdsburg Winery Chief Named 'Winemaker of the Year for 2011'

Bob Cabral, Director of Winemaking for Williams Selyem, has been named "Winemaker of the Year for 2011" by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

In presentation of their prestigious Wine Star Awards, Wine Enthusiast will honor Cabral and other international wine industry luminaries at a black-tie gala in New York City on Jan. 30.

Other nominees for Winemaker of the Year include Philippe Cambie of southern France, Alvaro Espinoza of Chile, Gerhard Kracher of Weinlaubenhof Kracher in Austria, and Zelma Long of California/South Africa.

In receiving the award, Cabral joins fellow honorees Genevieve Janssens of Robert Mondavi Winery (2010), Scott McLeod of Rubicon Estate & Francis Ford Coppola (2009), Margo Van Staaveren of Chateau St. Jean (2008), Carlo Ferrini of Italy (2007), and Olivier Humbrecht of Domain Zind-Humbrecht, France (2006).

Cabral has been involved in growing and making wine professionally since 1980 and has had an interest in wine and farming since his childhood. A fourth generation farmer and grape grower from the great San Joaquin Valley, he developed a passion for Pinot Noir early, joining the Williams Selyem mailing list in 1985 while still in grad school at Fresno State University. After John Dyson bought the winery in 1998, Burt Williams recommended that Bob take over as winemaker, which he did on July 29, 1998.

The 2011 harvest is Cabral's 32nd vintage at a commercial winery.

Cabral is an experienced winemaker whose meticulousness and patience yield wines that are authentic expressions of each vineyard site. In 2007, one such site found perfect expression and received a 100-point rating from Wine Enthusiast. William Selym's 2007 Litton Estate Vineyard Pinot Noir (now called was the first domestic Pinot Noir to earn a perfect score from a major wine publication. 

Cabral designed and planted the vineyard to an exact specification of clones, rootstocks, spacing and trellising, according to a news release Tuesday from the Healdsburg winery.

Each year, the editors of Wine Enthusiast Magazine honor outstanding achievement in the wine world, in that given year and over time. Categories include Wine Person of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, American, European, and New World Winery of the Year, Winemaker of the Year, Wine Region of the Year, and more. The winners will be announced in the Dec,15 issue of Wine Enthusiast.