Yesterday, a good friend and I were in the wine shop together. A great friend. Who loves wine too. And like many of us, initially reaches out to a bottle of wine from what they see on the label.
To me, this wine is a wine like that. It’s what I see when I pick up this wine. It is not the design, it’s the feel, it’s the message, it’s the vibe, and .. No, that’s it. It’s the vibe.
Mount Pleasant
Single Vineyard
Lovedale
Hunter Valley Semillon
Shall I break this down even further?
Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant Winery, home to the Old Hill Vineyard planted in 1880, is one of Australia’s most treasured vineyard sites. Located just two hours north of Sydney, the Mount Pleasant Winery creates some of Australia’s most celebrated and awarded wine styles.
Mount Pleasant draws on its extensive viticultural resources and acclaimed single vineyards, to create its award winning range of wines. The quality and longevity of Mount Pleasant wines is regularly recognised on the Australian wine show circuit.
Single Vineyard
Throughout the history of viticulture and wine making, the variation in the quality of wine produced from one defined plot of land to another has been well observed. Through various circumstance and perhaps just due to the sheer economics of it, a winemaker does not always have the opportunity to set aside these superior parcels of fruit and often the greater is included with the slightly lesser in making wines with regional designation or made to the style of the winemaker or brand.
In Burgundy, for example, vineyards are classified by quality with the highest quality vineyards bestowed the ranking of Grand Cru and often the names of these great single vineyards appear on the wine label in more prominent, bolder type face that the name of the producer. Montrachet, Corton, La Tache and Richebourg. Great wine starts with great grapes. Then, it is in the hands of the winemaker.
Lovedale is one of the great single vineyard semillons of the world, and its pedigree and sheer magnificence only emerge after some years in bottle. 2007 is a grand rendition, maturing ever so slowly, still retaining its pale straw-green hue. Primary cut grass and youthful lemon and lime zest are the themes here, upholding great energy and impressive drive of lemony acidity. Gentle Lovedale mineral texture hovers on a finish of suspended poise. Patience. Tyson Stelzer
Lovedale
The late Maurice O’Shea planted the Lovedale vineyard in 1946 with incredible foresight, recognising that the unique structure of the land and the surrounding environment would deliver the tightness and acidity for world-class Semillon.
Hunter Valley Semillon
I still believe we are suffering from the hangover of decades of labelling of one of Australia’s best wine styles as Hunter River Riesling, Chablis and White Burgundy, however it is the unoaked style of Hunter Valley Semillon pioneered by Drayton’s, Lindemans, McWilliam’s, Tulloch, Tyrrell’s and the newer, fruit accentuated styles championed by Iain Riggs of Brokenwood, Margan and Thomas Wines, certainly have the world taking notice.
Hunter Valley Semillon is Australia’s great gift to the world .. Jancis Robinson, MW
The Hunter Valley is recognised as the world’s leader in dry white wines made from Semillon. So strong is Semillon’s connection with the terroir of the Hunter Valley that the style cannot been replicated anywhere else in the world. Hunter Valley Semillon is widely regarded as Australia’s unique white wine – a style unlike all others, based on unique climatic conditions, Australian ingenuity and more than 180 years of practice.
Semillon is at its delicate best when picked early to make a wine of low alcohol. When young, it is deliciously crisp with abundant citrus aromas. With age Hunter Valley Semillon develops unique complex toast, vanilla and honey flavours, giving it depth and richness. This remarkable wine can mature and blossom for two decades and beyond and many people believe the wines are at their best around 8-10 years after vintage.
So with the nomenclature out of the way, what makes the Mount Pleasant Lovedale Hunter Valley Semillon 2007 what it is? What is the vibe in the glass and where did that vibe come from?
According to senior winemaker Scott McWilliam, the handpicked fruit was brought to the winery in excellent condition retaining freshness and quality. The grapes were destemmed and crushed, and only the highest quality free run juice was cold fermented with special yeast for a period of three weeks. After fermentation the wines was stored cold on gross lees for a short period of time after which it was blended, filtered and bottled.
Pale straw green. Lifted citrus blossom and zesty citrus peel with subtle notes of lemon meringue pie. Intense and refined lemon and lime with complex mineral notes a persistent mouth watering acidity gives a generous after taste which pleasantly lingers.
This wine provides exceptional drinking now or can be carefully cellared for up to fifteen years from vintage.
