David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner Semillon, Elim, South Africa 2016 (£16.99, Waitrose) If, a couple of years ago, you’d have told me that sémillon would be a white grape variety to watch, I would have suggested you’d been drinking too much sauvignon blanc. There is no club or hastag for sémillonistas as there is for riesling freaks or pinotphiles. It has never been one of those grape varieties with a loyal, much less a fanatical, fanbase, instead going unloved or just plain unnoticed, acknowledged, from time to time, for its co-starring role (with sauvignon blanc) in the great white blends – dry and, in Sauternes, sweet – of its original Bordeaux home. But some of my favourite winemakers have been taking it up with increasing enthusiasm, drawn to its ability to make wines with the sort of food-friendly, chardonnay-esque body and heft and savoury characters and sauvignon-like citrussy and grassy-herbal brightness found in Cape star David Nieuwoudt’s classy cool-climate Ghost Corner.
Triangle Wines Salvo Sémillon El Peral, Uco Valley, Argentina 2017 (£19.50, Bottle Apostle) One country that has really surprised me with the quality of its sémillon in recent years is Argentina. There isn’t a lot planted, but what there is tends to be old: several decades-old forgotten vines that somehow avoided being replaced by more fashionable varieties, and which now, as old vines are wont to do, provide the raw material for deep, balanced, complex, but still racy wines. The grapes for the charming Mendel Semillon, Mendoza 2017 (from £12.75, The Wine Society; Ministry of Drinks), with its green figgy, subtly honeyed and lemony citrus character, are sourced from a 70-year-old plot in Mendoza’s fashionable Paraje Altamira; while the vines for the gorgeously creamy yet zesty Matías Riccitelli Old Vines from Patagonia Sémillon 2017 (from £29.99, Strictly Wine; Great Wines Direct) were planted in the 1960s. Triangle Wines’ superb effort trumps them both: the herby-grassy-mineral delight comes from a 120-year-old plot high up in Mendoza’s Uco Valley.
Tyrrell’s Hunter Valley Semillon, Hunter Valley, Australia 2017 (from £14.50, The Wine Society; Fareham Wine Cellar; Hailsham Cellars) One small part of the wine world that has been ploughing a somewhat lonely furrow with its idiosyncratically delicious versions of sémillon is the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. These are quite unlike anything else in Australia in being modest in alcohol (often under 11% abv) and lemony-limey-lean when they’re bottled, before transforming into something richly toasty, but still steely and lithe, as they age (which they can do for decades). If you want t some of those delicious aged flavours of lime marmalade on toast ready made (although it will take on still more complexity over the next decade), try Mount Pleasant Cellar Aged Elizabeth Hunter Valley Semillon 2009 (£18.50, Great Western Wine). Tyrrell’s textbook example, meanwhile, can be squirrelled away while you await its toasty transformation, but its current state of pristine citrus is great with a plate of seafood right now.
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