Winemaker Notes
El Enemigo Semillón is light, creamy, and refreshing. It displays aromas of tropical fruit, spice, honey, acacia flowers, and vanilla. The rich palate boasts flavors of lemon, apricot, toasted nuts, and minerality.
Enjoy with mushroom risotto, goat cheese salad, or meatier fish like halibut, swordfish, or tuna.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Lovely aromas of pears, salted lemons and quince. The palate is saline and exceptional, with concentrated peach flavors and striking saltiness. Sourced from a historic vineyard in El Peral, this spent one year under flor. Bright, concentrated and incisive.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
My favorite wine of the El Enemigo range is the 2023 Semillon, which hails from Agrelo and was vinified in barrique with a substantial portion under flor. An exotic, floral bouquet of stone fruit, mandarin, citrus oil and dried white flowers is followed by a round, oily yet invigorating and tensile palate. The finish continues this tension with a chiseled, lifted quality that doesn't sacrifice textural breadth. This is a beautiful example of Uco Valley's proclivity to produce compelling Sémillon.
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Vinous
The 2023 Sémillon hails from Agrelo, Luján de Cuyo, and is aged 15 months in French oak with 35% under a flor veil. Yellow-green in hue, it opens with subtle honey and chamomile plus a touch of oak aging. This compact and medium-bodied white finishes pleasant and long with a return of gentle oak. This is a modern and nuanced Sémillon for Argentina, and compared to other years, the 2023 is slightly leaner.
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.”
By far the largest and best-known winemaking province in Argentina, Mendoza is responsible for over 70% of the country’s enological output. Set in the eastern foothills of the Andes Mountains, the climate is dry and continental, presenting relatively few challenges for viticulturists during the growing season. Mendoza, divided into several distinctive sub-regions, including Luján de Cuyo and the Uco Valley, is the source of some of the country’s finest wines.
For many wine lovers, Mendoza is practically synonymous with Malbec. Originally a Bordelaise variety brought to Argentina by the French in the mid-1800s, here it found success and renown that it never knew in its homeland where a finicky climate gives mixed results. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Pinot Noir are all widely planted here as well (and sometimes even blended with each other or Malbec). Mendoza's main white varieties include Chardonnay, Torrontés, Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.