Moss Wood 2014 Semillon
Wine Facts
| Harvested: | 20/02/2014 |
| Bottled: | 07/07/2014 |
| Released: | 20/11/2014 |
| Yield: | t/ha |
| Baume: | 13.00 |
| Alcohol: | 13.5% |
| Vintage Rating: | 9.5/10 |
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Tasting Notes
Colour and condition:
Medium to deep straw hue; bright condition.
Nose:
A classic combination of Semillon fruit aromas - figs, grapefruit, lemon sherbet and leaf. These combine with an interesting complex background of mushrooms and lanolin.
Palate:
Full bodied but with crisp acidity, combined with mouth-filling grapefruit, fig and honey notes, with an interesting blossom note at the end. The structure is perfect for cellaring, with fresh acidity and just a touch of tannin, although the fruit depth and balance makes it almost unperceivable.
Moss Wood 2024 Semillon – Ray Jordan, Ray Jordan Wine
This is a slightly fuller style than previously. Perhaps a product of the warmer vintage or an indication of a somewhat new direction for the variety. Regardless, it retains the essential linear mouthfeel and intensity of lemon zest and citrus. A crisp zingy acid sustains the long finish—an immediately appealing…
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 – Stuart Knox, The Real Review
Bright lime and lemon colours shine through the glass. Grapefruit, melon and chopped green herb aromatics. The palate has a tension and drive that instantly draws you in. Citrus fruit and hints of leafy greens add complexity whilst that driving acidity ensures it carries very long and crisp to the…
Moss Wood 2023 Semillon – Fergal Gleeson, Great Wine Blog
The Moss Wood 2023 Semillon leads with lemon and Granny Smith flavours. Dig a little deeper for fig and nectarine. It’s a riper and fuller bodied expression than Hunter releases. Still has that underlying chalk, dryness and acid line to keep everything tidy. Always highly pointed by wine critics but…
Moss Wood 2023 Semillon – Ray Jordan, Ray Jordan Wine
Remains one of my favourite Moss Wood wines, and certainly one of my favourite semillons. And this one from the great ’23 vintage is right up there with anything. It seems a more pungent and intense semillon than previous years and probably a result of the vintage which produced such…
Moss Wood 2023 Semillon – Angus Hughson, Wine Pilot.com
Immediately engaging thanks to excellent upfront volume of hay and honeydew melon with touches of lanolin which offer an impressive start. It then delivers a nicely textured and weighty expression with finer acidity than usual, but impresses with sheer power and youthful energy. An excellent vintage for this Margaret River…
Moss Wood 2023 Semillon – Ned Goodwin, jamessuckling.com
This is exceptional semillon, made with a stylistic nod to white Grave as much as fealty to Margaret River’s oath of immaculate ripeness, melded to a saline pop of freshness. Full-weighted, yet light on its feet. Some unresolved CO2 is as effective as the drag of acidity in promoting freshness….
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 2023 Semillon – Andrew Caillard, Wine Pilot.com – The Vintage Journal
Pale colour. Lifted grassy, lemon curd hint marzipan aromas with hints of aniseed. Attractive lemon curd, tropical fruit marzipan flavours, fine chalky textures, impressive mid-palate volume and well balanced linear fresh acidity. Generous and richly flavoured wine with lovely fruit definition and impact. Delicious to drink now but should keep…
Moss Wood 2023 Semillon – Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot.com
Always one of the most exciting West Aussie Semillons and this release is no different. The vintage notes from the team at Moss Wood rave about 2023. Cynics amongst might suggest that these guys really wouldn’t know a poor vintage if they ever had the misfortune to encounter one. It…
Vintage Notes
Following the theme of the last 8 years, the 2013/14 growing season gave us consistent warmth, albeit somewhat cooler during December, January and February than has been the case during that time. This is best illustrated by the maximum temperatures, which were around one degree cooler than average for those months, although perhaps fortunately, March bucked the trend and temperatures returned to the mean. This is an interesting pointer to the wine styles for the year, with all varieties showing good aromatic freshness, an especially appealing attribute in white wines.
At the same time as this, we had regular rainfall. In fact, calendar year 2013 is one of our wettest on record, where we recorded a total of 1219mm of rain. Some 326mm fell during the growing season, so the vines had plenty of moisture.
One of the downsides of all the rain, combined with the lingering effects of the 2012 hailstorm, is that yields in 2014 were consistently low. Part of the problem stems from the wet, cool conditions interrupting the vines flowering. Semillon yield, at 5.46 tonnes per hectare, was down 48%.
The lower yields are probably reflected in the length of the season, where the period between flowering and harvest was 97 days, 10 days earlier than average. At the same time, the vines got through more ripening because the fruit was harvested at 13⁰ Baume, slightly riper than the mean of 12.6⁰.
To summarise all this, we managed to get everything safely through to harvest and without bird or disease damage and delivered some very flavoursome grapes to the winery.
Production Notes
Median Harvest Date: 20th February, 2014
Harvest Ripeness: 13⁰ Baume
All fruit was hand harvested and delivered immediately to the winery and destemmed, crushed, chilled and transferred into the press. The juice was extracted pumped to a stainless steel tank where it was settled for 48 hours and then racked, with a small percentage of solids, to a second stainless steel tank. It was then seeded with pure yeast culture and allowed to ferment at 18⁰C. Once dryness was reached, the wine was racked off its gross lees and prepared for bottling.
Fining trials were carried out and it was decided to treat the wine with bentonite, for heat stability and with gelatine, to improve tannin balance. The wine was sterile filtered and bottled on 7th July, 2014.
Cellaring Notes
One of our finest ever Semillons, it has really enjoyable young fruit flavours and so is delicious to drink now. However, with its concentration and complexity it is a tremendous cellaring prospect and will reach its peak over the next 15 years, developing a rich and toasty nose and soft round palate and should drink beautifully through until at least 25 years of age.