Semillon - the unsung hero
Home of Australia's best semillon © Hunter Valley Wine Country Tourism [©Hunter Valley Wine Country Tourism]
Often written plain Semillon in non-francophone countries, a golden grape variety from south west France, is one of the unsung heroes of white wine production.
Blended with its traditional partner Sauvignon Blanc, this golden-berried vine variety is the key ingredient in Sauternes, arguably the world's longest-living unfortified wine, as it is in most of the great dry whites of Graves (see Pessac-Leognan). Unblended, in Australia's Hunter Valley, it is responsible for one of the most idiosyncratic and historic wine types exclusive to the New World. Thanks to its widespread establishment in Bordeaux and much of the southern hemisphere, it has been the world's most planted white grape variety capable of top-quality wine production but is not fashionable and is declining in importance.
Outside Sauternes, Semillon seems destined to play a supplementary role. The wines it produces tend to fatness and, although capable of ageing, have little aroma in youth. Sauvignon Blanc, with its internationally recognized name, strong aroma, high acidity, but slight lack of substance, fills in all obvious gaps. But if Semillon had traditionally been blended with Sauvignon, it attracted another blend-mate in the early 1990s, if for entirely different reasons. Semillon does not exactly complement Chardonnay so much as provide neutral padding for it and, in a world desperate for Chardonnay, Semillon found itself the passive ingredient in commercially motivated blends sometimes, even, called SemChard - most notably but not exclusively in Australia. And here, as elsewhere in the New World, Semillon's weight, and high yield, make it a popular base for commercial blends.
As a vine Semillon is easy to cultivate. It is almost as vigorous as Sauvignon Blanc with particularly deep green leaves, but flowers slightly later and is not particularly susceptible to coulure. Nor is it a victim of disease, apart from rot, which, in favourable conditions, is the blessed noble rot rather than the destructive grey rot. This makes Semillon a particularly productive vine which was doubtless a factor in its widespread popularity.
Its greatest concentration is still in Bordeaux, where, although total plantings halved between 1968 (when it was the most planted variety of either hue) and 1988, it was still the most planted white grape variety by far with nearly 12,000 ha/29,640 acres in 1988. On the left bank of the Garonne, in the Graves, Sauternes, and its enclave Barsac, Semillon still outnumbers Sauvignon in almost exactly the traditional proportions of four to one, while in the Entre-Deux-Mers, where most Semillon is planted, Sauvignon (together with varieties for financially more rewarding red wine production) is fast replacing it.
In the great, long-lived dry whites of Graves and Pessac-Leognan Semillon usually predominates and inspires rich, golden, honeyed, viscous wines quite unlike any Semillons made elsewhere. Low yields, old vines, oak ageing, and Sauvignon all play their part. In Sauternes, Semillon's great attribute is its proneness to noble rot. This special mould, Botrytis cinerea, concentrates sugars and acids and shrinks yields so that the best of the resulting wines such as Ch d'Yquem may continue to evolve for centuries. Again, oak ageing deepens Semillon's already relatively deep gold (really ripe grapes may almost look pink). Thus one of Semillon's disadvantages, a tendency to overcrop, is eliminated. Similar, but usually less exciting, sweet whites, the most ordinary made simply by stopping fermentation or adding sweet grape must, are made in the nearby appellations of Cadillac, Cerons, Loupiac, and Ste-Croix-du-Mont.
In quantitative terms, however, Semillon's most common expression, other than as basic white for local consumption in Chile, is as the major ingredient in basic white bordeaux. The best are usually made exclusively of Semillon with some of the other two `noble' varieties Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle, but up to 30 per cent of the blend may technically comprise Ugni Blanc (the undistinguished Trebbiano), Colombard, and even the much less common Merlot Blanc, Ondenc, and Mauzac. Cynically made Bordeaux Semillon can be very dull stuff indeed, high in yield and sulphur content but low in interest, acidity, and flavour.
Like Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon is allowed in many other appellations for dry and sweet whites of South West France but is perhaps most notable in qualitative terms in Monbazillac. Thanks to its (declining) importance throughout Bergerac Semillon is still the most planted variety in the Dordogne, outnumbering Merlot almost two to one, and is the most planted white-berried variety in the Lot-et-Garonne departement, although little of it finds its way into appellation controlee wine. It is technically allowed in most appellations of Provence, but has made little impact on the vineyards of the Midi, where acidity is at a premium.
Semillon's other great sphere of influence is South America in general and Chile in particular, where its more than 5,000 ha/12,400 acres (a dramatic drop since the late 1980s) make it the second more planted white wine grape after `Sauvignon' (see Sauvignonasse). Chilean Semillon was for long somewhat fat and oily, and the native tendency to over-produce has so far done little to improve this except in very isolated examples of the most ambitious producers. Argentina also has a little Semillon.
In North America Semillon is generally rather scorned, lacking the image of Sauvignon Blanc, although a significant number of producers use the former to add interest to the latter. Total area planted fell from 2,000 to 1,300 acres/530 ha of usually high-yielding Semillon in the 1990s, although some producers have experimented with producing botrytized wines in the image of Sauternes from it. It is allowed to add weight to Sauvignon in white bordeaux Meritage blends. Historically Livermore Valley has produced the best fruit for dry white varietals, while it can also perform well in parts of Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County. Semillon also has a relatively significant presence in Washington, where it often displays grassy, Sauvignon-like aromas, but is taken seriously by the likes of L'Ecole 41.
It is quite widespread, without being particularly important, throughout eastern Europe (see Croatia), but it is in South Africa and Australia where Semillon had a particularly glorious past. In 1822 93 per cent of all South African vineyard was planted with this variety, imported from Bordeaux. So common was it then in fact that it was simply called Wyndruif, or `wine grape'. It was subsequently called Green Grape, a reference to its abnormally green foliage, but has been declining in importance so that today the Semillion, as it is sometimes called, accounts for less than one per cent of Cape vineyards.
Semillon is still relatively widely grown in Australia, on the other hand, although it was decisively overtaken by Chardonnay in the late 1980s. It seems to have settled in Australia's wine industry relatively early, possibly having been imported from South Africa, and is still mainly grown in New South Wales, making either extraordinary, age-worthy, full-bodied dry whites in the Hunter Valley or more commercial liquids, together with the odd sweet marvel, in the irrigated vineyards inland. Only the best bottles from the Hunter and Bordeaux demonstrate Semillon's ability to age and, often, its tendency to acquire an almost orange depth of colour when it does. It was not until the 1980s, however, that Semillon was publicly revealed as the source of the Hunter's greatest. Until then these wines, typically made from early-picked grapes given no oak or malolactic fermentation, were usually called Hunter Riesling, and occasionally Chablis and White Burgundy, depending on slight variations in style. Hunter Valley producers today are tending to make two styles of Semillon, an open, early-maturing style and another designed for bottle ageing. Semillon plantings are once again increasing in Australia, and the country had a total of nearly 5,000 ha/12,400 acres in 1997.
In Australia's cooler sites such as Tasmania and the south of Western Australia, Semillon often demonstrates the same sort of grassiness as in Washington state and in New Zealand where plantings have steadily increased to about 200 ha. Some interesting sweet wines have been coaxed out of Semillon in Gisborne.
The variety was also exported to Israel to establish vineyards there at the end of the 19th century.
Bibliography - Brook, S., Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon (London, 1992).
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