Really sorry, Leonard. The wine went super quick this morning. We have all of three bottles left in inventory, our proverbial safety valve so we didn’t oversell the wine earlier. Just sent you a PM.
Bumping this up as a few folks have reached out to ask whether our offer is still open or not. It is indeed!!
Might’ve been the bourbon after yesterday’s BD frenzy, but Kara and I decided to extend the Library Discount through tomorrow.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions or if we can help troubleshoot any issues.
Thank you, Wine Berserkers!!!
These wines sounded too good to miss… so I came back to BD12 and got a mixed half case!
Thanks, Bryce - glad you came back for the after party!!
Mike… can you elaborate on the semillon style? Is it made in the Hunter style, or are you going for something else?
Great question, Clayton (and my apologies for getting to this sooner - busy Friday morning here at the winery).
The short answer is I’m trying to create a California style of Semillon, what I think works best here. The longer answer is that while I love and adore Hunter Valley Semillon (I worked the 2009 Harvest at Drayton’s), Kara and I are focused on making California wines. We’re not trying to emulate other regions (even if we are inspired by many of those wines). I also don’t think we can truly replicate the Hunter here in California. Climate, soil, vine material, all of those factors are different from the Hunter Valley. In other words, Semillon in California is less physiologically ripe at the Brix levels as the Hunter Valley.
In terms of fermentation, aging and bottling, there are some specifics we could go into, but the easiest explanation is the Hunter style is quickly ferment in tank, then bottle perhaps four months later. We ferment in used and neutral French oak with twelve to fourteen months sur lie ageing. We use some stainless steel (i.e. drums and kegs), although we’re slowly backing off those percentages as our style really seems to embrace more of the used oak influence. We also encourage spontaneous malolactic fermenation whereas that’s normally blocked in the Hunter.
All that said, our Semillon is certainly bright and fresh, and we’ve experimented with picking earlier to highlight that further (e.g. the 2017 Napa Semillon). I think it’s very fair to say, though, that ours is a more textural (not fat) Semillon than what you’ll typically find in the Hunter Valley.
Whew!! Hope that makes sense and didn’t make anyone’s eyeballs spin.
Based on Siun’s post, in for some Milhouse, thanks!
Same sorta, I went 2/3rds and 1/3rd on semillon.
Thanks for the reply. I look forward to trying. Semillon is such an interesting grape, bits its various expressions remain not very well explored. I’m fairly well attuned to the Hunter style, having spent the first few decades of my life in NZ and Australia (and having an uncle that was an early part owner at Brokenwood). That said… it sounds like your style is probably not much like those wines at all.