Some thoughts from our Semillon Session

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As you may be aware, we recently held our first Wine Seminar in Cape Town – Semillon Session: Groendruif Gees.

Attendees were treated to the collective Semillon wisdom of James Downes from Shannon Vineyards in Elgin, Johan Meyer from Mother Rock Wines in the Swartland, Trizanne Barnard of Trizanne Signature Wines who now makes her wines in Elim, John Seccombe of Thorne & Daughters based out of Bot River, and Gottfried Mocke, head winemaker at Boekenhoutskloof in Franschhoek.

There were lots of interesting take aways, such as the continuously steady decline in vineyard area over many years, the apparent need for bottle age for Semillon wines to show their best (the 2009 Boekenhoutskloof was spectacular), and the fickle nature of the variety in the vineyard, especially where pH and total acidity are concerned.

But possibly the most interesting moment came when the question was asked “Why is there little to no Semillon Gris in other countries that have (many times) more Semillon planted than South Africa?“. Viticulturist-extraordinaire James Downes jumped in:

“The ‘Gris’ mutation of Semillon could be the plant’s reaction to the South African terrior – the soils and the weather.”

― James Downes, Shannon Vineyards

If this is the case, it could be the original South African variant! John Seccombe offered another possibility – that the Gris mutation had indeed occurred in those other countries, but it had been seen as inferior material and thus been eradicated from vineyards.

Whatever the truth, the fact is that Semillon Gris remains a South African specialty, and is worth celebrating.

South African Semillon for me is one of the most exciting varieties, not only because of its centuries-long legacy here, but because of the quality and character of the wines it can produce. A point made on the evening by Gottfried Mocke of Boekenhoutskloof was that aged Semillons are some of the most gastronomically interesting wines produced in South Africa. We agree!