Winemaker Notes
The Hunter Valley Semillon has a lifted nose showing citrus freshness, the palate continues with fresh citrus and concentrated grapefruit flavors. The palate is light to medium bodied with a perfect balance of fruit and soft acid
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This historic winery is a benchmark for the inimitable style of Semillon the Hunter Valley’s warm and humid conditions are famed for. This current vintage is an open and delicate drop that ripples with honey-flecked fruit, beeswax and dried herbs. The juicy fruit and acidity prickle amid a talc-like texture that flows through to a long, refreshing finish.
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Australian Wine Companion
This is said by Tyrrell's to be the baby brother of Vat 1, coming from special blocks from Tyrrell's wide selection of vineyards. Its palate has building blocks yet to come together, ripe semillon fruit and minerally acidity. The hot vintage tested many vineyards.
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Wine Spectator
Distinctive and refreshing, featuring bright, crisp lemony flavors, with undercurrents of lanolin and saline. Offers a supple frame and an impressive finish.
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.