Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
The clear, platinum-like color sets this up as a classic, unwooded Hunter semillon. Like the color, its flavors are nearly invisible, ghosting nutty wheat and green apple, buzzing with malic acidity. With air and each subsequent taste, the flavors grow increasingly long. The lovely brisk balance predicts this will age with grace; for drinking ten to 12 years out with grilled prawns or langoustines.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Hunter Valley Semillon provides a bit more weight and alcohol (11%) than the 2008, with intense aromas of fresh pears, white peach, lemongrass and jasmine. There is really nice tension, a tad youthful but approachable now with lots of citrus and stone fruit flavors, a yeasty/honeyed character lending balance to the acid, and a silken texture as well as a long finish. Drink 2010-2018.
Sémillon has the power to create wines with considerable structure, depth and length that will improve for several decades. It is the perfect partner to the vivdly aromatic Sauvignon Blanc. Sémillon especially shines in the Bordeaux region of Sauternes, which produces some of the world’s greatest sweet wines. Somm Secret—Sémillon was so common in South Africa in the 1820s, covering 93% of the country’s vineyard area, it was simply referred to as Wyndruif, or “wine grape.”
Most admired for citrus-driven, mineral-rich and often age-worthy Semillon wines, Hunter Valley is one of Australia’s oldest wine regions and was home to its very first commercial vineyards. The region’s warm summer nights coupled with autumn cloud cover and cool sea breezes allow full ripening and healthy acidity levels for Semillon; its diverse soils of volcanic basalt and white alluvial sands promote the development of Semillon’s delicate aromas. Hunter Valley Semillons can certainly be enjoyed in their youth but with 10 to 20 years in the cellar, the best examples develop intriguing notes of honey, browned butter and roasted nuts.
Chardonnay and Shiraz also do well in Hunter Valley.