Semillon

Wine Style:
This grape tends to make a wonderful late-harvest wine, with complex fig, pear, tobacco and honey notes. As a blending wine it adds body, flavor and texture to Sauvignon Blanc. It may be blended with Chardonnay, but does not add much to the flavor.

Flavors:

Origin:
Bordeaux in France

Found:
Bordeaux, Australia, and California

This grape is almost grown worldwide, but isn’t always put in value. The Sémillon can, under the right conditions, deliver fine wines that can age well. The grape gives wines with a lot of extract and little acids. One can smell and taste apricot, mango and peach. Semillon is well suitable for fermentation and maturation on oak barrels. The wine can develop a rich taste. This variety is most famous in the noble sweet wines from the Bordeaux area Sauternes or in the dry white wines of high classification from Bordeaux.

Semilion is the main grape for Sauternes and particularly successfully grown in Australia’s Hunter Valley. In Bordeaux it is the most widely planted white grape and is blended with Sauvignon Blanc to produce the great long-lived dry whites of Graves as well as the great sweet wines of Sauternes.

It is high in alcohol and extract and relatively low in aroma and acidity. Its thin skin makes it very susceptible to botrytis which is prerequisite for the making of Sauternes. It responds well to oak ageing and, while having a lightly lemony aroma when young develops lanolin flavours which some describe as “waxy”, as well as a rich, creamy, intense, texture and a deep golden colour.

It struggles in most New World countries, with its inherent low acidity often producing blowsy, overblown dilute wines. However in New South Wales`s Hunter Valley it produces stunning wines which are fruit driven in youth but develop intense butterscotch and rich honeyed flavours when fully mature.

Further Reading:
Appellation America
Cellar Notes
Jancis Robinson
Wine Anorak
Wine Diva
Wine Intro
Wine Pros
Wine.com
Wikipedia