Moss Wood 2022 Semillon
| Wine Facts | |
|---|---|
| Median Harvest Date | 9th March, 2022 |
| Mean Harvest Ripeness | 13.5°Be |
| Yield | 9.06 t/ha |
| Growing Season Ave Temperature | 21.1⁰C |
| Number of hours accrued between 18 and 28⁰C | 961 hours |
| Number of hours above 33⁰C | 118 hours |
| Days Elapsed between Flowering and Harvest | 113 days |
| Bottled | 7th July, 2022 |
| Released | 1st September, 2022 |
| Alcohol | 14.50 % |
Wine Facts
-
Median Harvest Date
9th March, 2022
-
Mean Harvest Ripeness
13.5° Be
-
Yield
9.06 t/ha
-
Weather Data
Growing Season Ave Temperature – 21.1⁰C
Number of hours accrued between 18 and 28⁰C – 961 hours
Number of hours above 33⁰C – 118 hours
-
Days Elapsed between Flowering and Harvest
113 days
-
Bottled
7th July, 2022
-
Released
1st September, 2022
-
Alcohol
14.50%
WA Wine Review 2024
Ray Jordan “Moss Wood is a family-owned wine company and a pioneer of the Margaret River region. Planted in 1969, Moss Wood is an important founding estate of Margaret River. Clare and Keith Mugford, as viticulturalists, winemakers and proprietors, have been tending the vineyard and making wine at Moss Wood…
Moss Wood 2023 Semillon – Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
Gee, they’ve turned out an excellent Semillon in 2023. No oak employed here. Ripe green apple, quince, lime leaf, citrus blossom, a little spice and jalapeño. It’s flavoursome, but balanced, with a fine grip, green melon and citrus, arrowroot biscuits, and a bright and long finish offering lime zest and…
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Jane Faulkner – James Halliday, The Wine Companion
The depth and flesh on this wine at such a young age makes it immediately accessible, but it will last quite some distance too. Today it’s refreshing with upfront fruit, all lemon and white nectarines, lemongrass, some orange peel and grapefruit pith. Powerful yet equally compelling. August, 2023
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
Pie apple, pear, jasmine, toast and cinnamon. It’s rich and flavoursome, a little warm in alcohol, but chalky and juicy, stonefruit, guava, pineapple, a pithy lemon/lime thing, a bit broad and throaty, but full of flavour and toasty spices. Solid. 2022 – 2027 November, 2022
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Bob Campbell, The Real Review
Weighty, mouth-filling yet vibrant wine with marzipan, lemon curd, lime zest and white wildflowers. High-energy semillon with a backbone of assertive acidity that is a perfect fit with the wine’s restrained fruit sweetness. January, 2023
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Gabrielle Poy, The Real Review
Deep lemon, heady notes of toasted almonds, lemon cheesecake, cut grass and white florals tempt the nose. While the nose hints towards richness there’s a simmering energy on the palate which brings balance to the wine. This wine appeals with its complexity and authority, most importantly though it’s delicious. December,…
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Ray Jordan, Best Semillon of the year 2023
These are few straight varietal semillon made in WA these ways, which is disappointing. But when you taste a wine like this Moss Wood and the runner-up Myattsfield you have to ask why. Love it as a friendly approachable youngster or with bottle development November, 2022
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Ray Jordan, WA Wine Award 2023
You hear quite a lot about Moss Wood’s great cabernets and chardonnay, and as a result this little guy can slip under the radar. But it remains one of my favourite wines in the Moss Wood portfolio. And it shows how good semillon can be in Margs. This has got…
Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot
2022 is a year that locals are raving about in Margaret River, but then there are people on this planet who have lived long and fulfilling lives and during that time, have never seen a dud vintage in the region. Their scale goes from very good to outstanding, it seems….
More Than Cabernet From Moss Wood – Reviews of Moss Wood 2021 Chardonnay, Moss Wood 2020 Pinot Noir, Moss Wood 2022 Semillon – Ray Jordan wine review, Business News
More than cabernet from Moss Wood Moss Wood’s versatility is on full display with three wines from its 2020 crop. “The 2020 vintage was one of the smallest on record but the fruit that did come off the old vines was generous and beautifully flavoured. Moss Wood cabernet sauvignon is…
Vintage Notes
After the complicated stories of the 2021 Chardonnay and 2020 Pinot Noir, we are delighted (and relieved) to report the 2021/22 season was near-perfect. Conditions were warm and dry and we have to go back to 1983 for a similar year.
Mother Nature was in a relaxed mood for the entirety of the season. For example, calendar year 2021 is one of our wettest years on record, 44% above average and yet, just as the Semillon started flowering in mid-November, the rain stopped. Conditions remained dry and temperatures were warm, with only one day below 8°C.
Hot conditions prevailed right through the summer, including the hottest days since February 1985, when the mercury peaked at 40.2°C on 26th December 2021 and 40.1°C on 19th January 2022. In fact, across the full season, the Semillon enjoyed 118 hours above 33°C. We didn’t lack for warmth!
With everything going in our favour, we had high hopes when we started picking on 19th March 2022 and we weren’t disappointed. The ripeness came in at 13.5° Baume, slightly above the average of 12.8° and yields were a creditable 9.06 tonnes per hectare, a mere 6% down, not bad at all for a vineyard celebrating its 50th birthday this year.
Reflecting on the 1983 Moss Wood Semillon, that particular vintage expressed clear, ripe fruit aromas of ripe figs and excitingly for us, the 2022 vintage has big dollops of exactly the same thing. Given they were similarly warm years, this doesn’t come as a surprise but it’s still a thrill to see that intensity. To give some context to these comments and for those interested in a bit of history, the 1983 Moss Wood Semillon was our most successful white wine ever in the wine show system. At the 1983 Perth Royal Show it was awarded a Gold Medal and received the trophy for the Best Western Australian White Wine in the show. This was donated by the Rural and Industries Bank and included a cash prize of $500, no insignificant amount in those days. The owners of Moss Wood at the time, Bill and Sandra Pannell, very generously allowed one Keith Mugford to pocket the proceeds. It was quite a day!
Production Notes
The production steps were very much in line with our traditional recipe, apart from one small change. The fruit was hand-picked and delivered to the winery where it was hand-sorted and then whole-bunch pressed.
At this point, we introduced a new technique.
In the past, the pressed juice was clarified using cold settling, a process that uses enormous amounts of energy to chill the juice down and hold it at 10°C for several days. For 2022, we introduced flotation, where the solids are floated to the surface and the clear juice taken from underneath. The juice is held at 18°C and clarified in a few hours. The energy and time savings are huge, not to mention the juice proceeds quickly into primary fermentation, reducing the risk of oxidation.
After this, the must was inoculated for primary fermentation with multiple yeast strains and ferment temperatures were controlled to 18°C.
Just to be clear, the wine had no contact with wood, either for fermentation or for aging. It is made in the classic, fruit-dominant Australian style and was held only in stainless steel tanks.
Once the sugar level reached dryness, the wine was racked off gross lees, fined with bentonite for protein stability and then cold stabilised. It was sterile filtered and bottled on 7th July 2022. We always bottle the Semillon as quickly as we can to capture as much of its youthful fruit notes as possible.
Tasting Notes
Colour and condition:
Pale to medium straw hue, with green tints; bright condition.
Nose:
Bright, lifted aromas of ripe figs, some lemon and granny smith apple notes, with a touch of lanolin and mushroom in the background.
Palate:
The initial impression is one of generous, long fruit flavours, consisting on figs, apple and preserved lemon. There is good weight and length, with fresh acidity and some soft tannins on the finish.
Cellaring
For those with the patience and the room in their wine fridges, or, better still, in their cellar, if you enjoy old Semillon, this will be a worthy addition and will repay long term aging. It will need at least 10 years to show bottle complexity in the form of some buttery and toasty notes but at least a further 10 years for them to become dominant. In the meantime, for those who enjoy the generous fruit notes of young white wines, it offers very good drinking in the meantime.