Patience needed: Australia’s Top 50 Semillons
Semillon could be Australia’s most perplexing grape.
Critics rave about the variety – frequently awarding its most noted examples handsome scores and adorning their bottles with more gold medals than a Russian general.
Yet consumers mostly look the other way. Single varietal semillon accounts for less than one per cent of white bottled sales. That compares with the big guns of white – chardonnay and sauvignon blanc – which collectively account for about 60 per cent of white wine sales. It’s no wonder Australia’s two biggest winemakers leave this grape to its adoring but tiny fan club of independent winemakers.
The gap between critical hit and box office flop is largely explained by semillon’s need for age. While a discerning few appreciate its razor sharp acidity in youth, semillon really doesn’t start to get going for at least five years. And another five years wouldn’t touch the sides in some cases.
That’s when critics drooling about semillon’s waxy, honeyed, limey notes in hushed tones usually reserved for wines they alone appreciate. This is illustrated vividly by our list of the Top 50 shown below in which seven of the Top 10 are six years or older. The Top Five are all eight years or older.
The problem is most wine sales in Australia are made in supermarket or supermarket-owned chain stores which almost exclusively stock a wine’s current vintage. And, given that nearly all wine is purchased within hours of consumption, semillon producers have to carry their stock for years before they can push it out to the public. It’s just another reason large commercial producers avoid the grape.
Semillon’s other idiosyncrasy is found in its regional origins. If psychologists were ever looking for the perfect Word Association Test they could do no better than simply mention “Semillon”. Any Australian who didn’t immediately utter “Hunter Valley” should be sent away for further tests.
The Hunter might well be synonymous with semillon but only for its single-varietal dry variety, as it turns out. Semillon’s sweeter and probably more popular version, dessert wines made with grapes infected with the botrytis fungus, mostly hail from further south in the Big Rivers region or northern Victoria.
And semillon grapes blended together with sauvignon blanc to produce Australia’s biggest-selling still white blend come almost exclusively from Western Australia’s Margaret River.
So it should come as no surprise that our top-rated semillon last year came from somewhere else altogether – Shoalhaven on NSW’s south coast. Go figure.
Here’s our list of Australia’s top 50 dry semillons:
| 1 | Coolangatta Estate Wollstonecraft Semillon 2009 |
| 2 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Vat 1 Semillon 2005 |
| 3 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Vat 1 Semillon 2009 |
| 4 | McGuigan Hunter Vineyard Select Semillon 2005 |
| 5 | McGuigan Bin 9000 Semillon 2007 |
| 6 | Brokenwood ILR Reserve Semillon 2009 |
| 7 | McGuigan Bin 9000 Semillon 2013 |
| 8 | McGuigan Bin 9000 Semillon 2016 |
| 9 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Stevens Semillon 2011 |
| 10 | Coolangatta Estate Semillon 2016 |
| 11 | Brokenwood Maxwell Vineyard Semillon 2009 |
| 12 | Tempus Two Pewter Semillon 2015 |
| 13 | Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2009 |
| 14 | McGuigan Shortlist Hunter Ridge Semillon 2007 |
| 15 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Vat 1 Semillon 2016 |
| 16 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Belford Semillon 2013 |
| 17 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Stevens Semillon 2006 |
| 18 | McGuigan Shortlist Hunter Ridge Semillon 2016 |
| 19 | First Creek Wines Single Vineyard Murphy’s Semillon 2016 |
| 20 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Vat 1 Semillon 2013 |
| 21 | Silkman Wines Single Vineyard Blackberry Semillon 2015 |
| 22 | Silkman Wines Reserve Semillon 2016 |
| 23 | Coolangatta Estate Estate Grown Semillon 2009 |
| 24 | Gundog Estate The Chase Semillon 2016 |
| 25 | Two Rivers Wines Stones Throw Semillon 2015 |
| 26 | The Willows Vineyard Semillon 2011 |
| 27 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards HVD Semillon 2005 |
| 27 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Belford Semillon 2006 |
| 29 | McLeish Estate Wines Cellar Reserve Semillon 2009 |
| 30 | Tempus Two Pewter Semillon 2016 |
| 31 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Belford Semillon 2016 |
| 32 | Coolangatta Estate Semillon 2015 |
| 33 | First Creek Wines Winemaker’s Reserve Semillon 2011 |
| 34 | Cockfighter’s Ghost Reserve Semillon 2016 |
| 35 | Audrey Wilkinson Semillon 2016 |
| 36 | Bimbadgen Signature Semillon 2014 |
| 37 | Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2011 |
| 38 | De Iuliis Semillon 2016 |
| 39 | Peter Lehmann Wines Margaret Semillon 2012 |
| 40 | McGuigan Shortlist Hunter Ridge Semillon 2015 |
| 41 | Drayton’s Family Wines Vineyard Reserve Semillon 2013 |
| 42 | Audrey Wilkinson The Ridge Semillon 2014 |
| 43 | Coolangatta Estate Estate Grown Semillon 2015 |
| 44 | Arlewood Estate Semillon 2014 |
| 45 | Brokenwood Hunter Valley Semillon 2016 |
| 46 | Tyrrell’s Vineyards Belford Semillon 2015 |
| 47 | Gartelmann Wines Benjamin Semillon 2016 |
| 48 | Cellarmasters Bin Maturation Bennetts Bonanza Semillon 2013 |
| 48 | De Iuliis Semillon Single Vineyard Love In The Dale 2016 |
| 50 | Murray Street Vineyards White Label Semillon 2016 |