2019 Brokenwood Wines Semillon Hunter Valley Australia 750 ml

Brokenwood is a benchmark producer of Australia’s Hunter Valley region, one of the country's “most respected estates,” as according to Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. The 2019 Brokenwood Semillon more than lives up to the estate's reputation, dazzling from the first pour with a zesty acid backbone making its pithy grapefruit and citrus peel aromas  vivacious and energetic. 

The flash of Brokenwood’s state-of-the-art winery and the gusto of its heralded winemaker serve a mighty cause at the end of the day: for one of the finest examples of Semillon to be found in the world, look no further than this 2019—a bargain bottle that will last the next 25 years in a cellar. That’s an investment of $1 a year per bottle—for a serious pleasure-filled return.   

Over two or more decades (if you can manage to resist opening these bottles immediately) Riggs' focused and intense Semillons develop richness and complexity in tandem with the vibrancy and lemon-lime zest of their younger selves. 

In the same way that breezes from the San Pablo Bay cool down hot and sunny Napa Valley, the chilly wind off the south Pacific Ocean lowers temperatures in Hunter Valley, which sits just north of Sydney, allowing Semillon grapes to retain their vibrant acidity and zip. While the region has been under vine since the early 19th century, it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that the combination of Hunter Valley’s unique terroir and Semillon’s early ripening brilliance took the world by storm. Today, Hunter Valley Semillon is a mainstay in the world of white wine—and in our cellars.

After almost 50 years of cultivating Semillon, Brokenwood remains a standard-bearer for Semillon in Australia. Chief winemaker Lain Riggs as been at the helm for 37 vintages. Australia wine guru James Halliday has written that Riggs’ experience brings “a unique mix of winemaking skills, management of a diverse business, and an unerring ability to keep Brokenwood’s high profile fresh and newsworthy.” 
We typically think of white Burgundy, or bone-dry high-acid German Riesling from Pfalz or the Mosel when we talk about the most complex, long-lived dry white wines in the world.

But the dry Semillon wines coming out of Australia’s Hunter Valley are shaking things up, combining a unique blend of subtlety, complexity, and verve found nowhere else, and in terms of value, well, there’s no competition. The case in point is this 2019 Brokenwood.