Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
There’s lovely lemony fruit concentration from first sniff of this distinctive Hunter Valley Semillon, underscored by wool, beeswax and floral nuances. There’s textural richness but plenty of fresh acidity too. It is an excellent example of this famed style ready for drinking right now, paired with goat’s cheese or summer salad, but it’s also sturdy enough for poultry or buttery seafood.
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Wine Spectator
Offers a rich, savory mix of beeswax and wildflower honey, along with a hint of lanolin, savory mineral accents of crushed oyster shell, and ruby grapefruit and lemon curd notes at the core. Drink now. 300 cases made, 60 cases imported.
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.