Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This vintage of Vat 1 has stupendous acidity and rigid structure, but still with an awesome depth. It's so measured you want to applaud in appreciation.
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James Suckling
Tighter and less phenolic than the basket pressed Johnno's. Finer detail here which suits the transparency of the style more, perhaps. Long-plus and will age gracefully over the next 15 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Vat 1 Semillon presents a citrus nose garlanded with lemon grass and lime leaves that is quite chalky and a little closed. In the mouth it is a classic Vat 1 – bone dry and light-bodied with rasping acidity, great citrus intensity and mineral character. It has a very long, elegant finish though needs time to evolve.
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Wine Enthusiast
At six years of age, this is just coming into its own. Hints of green fruit remain, tempered by notes of wet stone and toasted marshmallow, harbingers of the full maturity that will arrive in a few years. It's not as lean or edgy as it must've been as a young wine, but is rounding beautifully into form.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Distinctive, with an appealing whiff of lanolin to the lemon curd and orange zest core, set on a medium body. A touch of toasted green tea shows on the crisp finish. Drink now through 2026. 3,000 cases made.
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.