Emma Lydia’s Garden’ Semillon 2006

‘Emma Lydia’s Garden’ Semillon 2006 – Good luck finding many wines available with such an amount of time under their belt as this Barossa Semillon, especially at this price. Mention Semillon and most immediately think of the Hunter, where it is very much a love-it-or-love-it-not-quite-so-much style, leaner in its youth, no oak, surprisingly low alcohol and long aged. Semillon has also long been a mainstay of white wines from the Barossa, made in a very different, though equally legitimate style, with the judicious use of oak, riper flavours when young though also able to age well for many years, alcohol levels more akin to what we might expect with say Chardonnay and a richness of flavour that is not seen in the Hunter. 

This wine has an amazing deep gold colour, quite extraordinary for its age, with notes of lanolin, stonefruit, quince and lemon butter, just like my grandmother used to make. Mature and certainly for drinking now, it is of medium length with an appealing texture, and even a flick of acidity. Definitely worth chasing. 91.