Wednesday, December 10, 2014

2014 Jilly Margaret River FIFO (Semillon)

This is an unusual Semillon if you're used to a Hunter Valley Sem – or perhaps not. For there can be some unusual HV Sems. Nevertheless, the Jilly Sem is probably recognisable as a Sem – a drink for adults. It's serious, high art, modernist, unyielding in any quest for popularism. A shy, clear mid gold in colour, maybe even with a tinge of lime, and it would seem, on some glances, without that yellow pigment, it could be as colourless as Australian Chenin Blanc. It is its perfume that is most unusual: nutty, nutty, nutty, and honey/hay, roast chicken,  corn, summer grass. The palate is also nutty, with popcorn. The young and emerging winemaker (not all emergent artists are young), Jared Dixon, of Clunes, NSW, Australia, says he felt sympathy for Semillon, under-rated and, as a consequence, usually mixed with Sav Blanc. The Janice Robinson Oxford Companion to Wine says that Sem  is an 'unsung' hero; but from the Hunter Valley, 'it is responsible for one of the most idiosyncratic and historic wine types exclusive to the New World'. (Strange to hear Oz described as the new world!) But here is a winemaker prepared to acknowledge sophistication.   A superb Semillon, with an idiosyncratic  label made by a friend: a snake outline, and yellow and ballet-pink blotches reminiscent of Rothko. From the Margaret River, Western Australia (gravel loam, Upper Wilyabrup, hand-picked, left on skins for 36 hours in the cold, basket pressed, barrel fermented, flew in  2/2/14, flew out 2/3/14): now contending the Hunter Valley!