Moss Wood 1988 Semillon

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Tasting Notes

The 1988 Moss Wood Semillon is a crisp, clean wine that is full of flavour. It has a fresh, aromatic bouquet, is soft and round on the palate, beautifully balanced, has rich, ripe, herbaceous fruit and considerable length. Although the wine will be delicious drinking now or over the summer months, it has the structure, fruit and track record to develop greater complexity over the next ten years.

Vintage Notes

A consistently wet spring which balanced the preceding dry winter of 1987 and boosted the soil moisture was followed by a mild growing season which saw the grapes ripen quickly and picking begin in the first week in February. Although down on the usual yield for Semillon, the vintage produced grapes of very good quality which were rich and ripe rather than herbaceous.

Production Notes

There were no problems with fermentation which proceeded cleanly and well. The result is a wine which is consistent with the Moss Wood style with its fruit characters having overtones of figs and honey. The herbaceous qualities, typical of this variety in the Margaret River region, are present but do not dominate the wine. We believe that the wine shows the rich characters of the 1988 vintage on the palate. It has good fruit flavour, soft acid, a big structure, considerable length and the capacity to age well.

We see it as similar to the 1986 wine and a typical Semillon for the vineyard. The only disappointment with the wine has been the low yield; down from 2,000 gallons for the 1987 bumper crop to 1,250 gallons - or 20% below the normal yield for the Semillon crop.