Semillon
For a grape that’s been made into Australian wine for over 150 years, there’s still a lot of confusion over semillon. And for a variety still struggling for recognition against a tidal wave of chardonnay, it’s intriguing that three separate and well-established wine regions, the Barossa, the Riverina and the Hunter Valley, are each trying to make the grape their own. In reality, the horse has bolted. While semillon can perform some fine and interesting tricks from one side of this country to another, its greatest wine is unquestionably made in the Lower Hunter Valley.
The classic Hunter semillon begins its life rather lean and taut, even mean and slightly hollow. It will only reveal the lightest of grassy/tobacco notes, with a focus towards delicate suggestions of lemon rind and green melon. At around three years of age the wines acquire texture and flesh; their bouquet begins to express honey, toast, butter and occasionally spicy complexity, while they retain their vitally fresh chalky/lemon acids. From five to eight years onwards they can become richer, rounder and surprisingly powerful, more complex, nutty and savoury. The best then live and develop for considerably longer still.
By comparison, Barossa semillons begin their lives with riper melon flavours and a more fleshy mouthfeel. They’re shorter-term wines, usually given additional sweetness and vanilla character through a spell in American oak. The best remain fruit-driven, but become refreshing, generous wines for three to five years cellaring. Clare semillons are richer than those from the Hunter, but more restrained and citrusy than those from the Barossa. They can finish with wonderful slatey acids. A world apart in style and origin, Western Australian semillons, from the Margaret River in particular, are more pungent and herbaceous by comparison, but delightfully long and citrusy, with lively acidity. They are made into fresher, unwooded styles, or else richer, creamier barrel-fermented wines. Riverina semillon is vibrant, lightly fruity and lightly grassy, and best suited to early consumption.
Each of the wines to miss out on a full tasting note in this section comes from the Hunter Valley. Packed with punchy ripe fruit, Tyrrell’s lightly herby and steely Lost Block Semillon 2001 gets my value vote at only $14 per bottle. It’s narrowly ahead of the more mature Mount Pleasant Elizabeth 1998, whose generous toasty, honeyed and almost keroseney flavours and savoury finish show time and again why Hunter semillon is worth keeping. Special mention also to the grassy, tangy and tropical Brokenwood Semillon 2001 and to The Rothbury Estate’s long-living Brokenback Semillon 2000.
Allandale Semillon 2000
The thing about classic Hunter semillon is that it can be fine and delicate, yet can still mature for a decade and more in the bottle. The clear herbal and melon aromas of this typical example are so subtle as almost to be neutral, yet its palate is long and supple, brightly flavoured with lively citrus fruit and punctuated by chalky, lemony acids. From a season of rare warmth and sunshine, it will develop beautifully for at least another six years.
Killerby Semillon 1999
A rounder, richer and more generous expression of Western Australian semillon of the style made famous by Moss Wood, Sandstone and others. Its fresh, lightly spicy aromas of melon, peach and citrus fruit are lifted by more than a hint of lightly smoky, buttery and vanilla oak, while its palate is diametrically opposed to the Hunter style: fleshy, soft and juicy, indeed almost oily. There’s excellent length of flavour before a lingering lemony finish. Drink any time over the next five years.
Rockford Semillon 1999, $16, cellar door
Benchmark Barossa semillon whose up-front and assertively charry, vanilla oak influences are easing back into its ripe characters of melon, figs and citrus fruit. It’s rich, soft and succulent; its creamy, mouthfilling palate bursting with lingering flavour. Lightly phenolic and punctuated by suitably soft acids, it will even flesh out further with two or three more years in the bottle.
Rosemount Estate Show Reserve Semillon 2000, $25
Phillip Shaw initiated this unusual expression of semillon in the 1980s, treating his best low-yielding Upper Hunter Semillon as if it were a premium chardonnay. The finished wine has all the citrus/melon/tobacco character and soft acidity expected of young Hunter semillon, with the optional extras of toffee-like malolactic characters and vanilla oak influence. Although ten percent was fermented in stainless steel, the bulk was fermented in year-old French oak, then left on lees for six months to acquire its bready aromas and develop its creamy texture.
Tyrrell’s Stevens Semillon 1997, $25
Tyrrell’s is synonymous with classic Hunter semillon, and it’s only its price tag that prohibits its best semillon, Vat 1, from inclusion in this tasting. Sourced from the ancient Hillside and Glenoak vineyards, this steadily maturing wine is beginning to reveal its true form. Its fragrance of lemon, melon and tobacco leaf has a complex background of nutty and dried straw aromas, while its long, mineral palate offers penetrative and sharply defined lemon and melon flavour, before a still bracing finish of fresh citrusy acids. It’s about half-way there towards its ultimate destination.
Voyager Estate Semillon 2000, $25
So herbal, smoky and tropical it could only ever come from Margaret River, this fragrant, juicy semillon simply explodes with bright flavours of guava and melon. A light background of lemon rind fruit and fine-grained lightly toasty vanilla oak permeates both nose and palate, while it finishes long and fine with a distinctive freshness and mineral quality. There’s thickness and richness aplenty, but elegance and tightness as well. Complex and youthful, with a cellaring future.
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