2024 Braemore Semillon Jeroboam
2024 Braemore Semillon Jeroboam
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Hunter Valley Semillon is one of the world's most uniquely regional wine styles. The Braemore vineyard (planted 1969) is situated on the sandy alluvial flats of Hermitage Road, Pokolbin, and consistently produces Semillon featuring freshness, vibrancy, and remarkable longevity. This wine has achieved an enviable reputation over the years as being one of the finest examples of classic Hunter Valley Semillon. Each vintage we bottle exactly 12 individually numbered 3 litre Jeroboams. A wine for the serious collector. This double magnum is presented in a timber gift box.
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Winemaking Overview
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In the Vineyard
After three years of relatively wet La Nina conditions, the rain certainly eased off from January 2023 right through to the 2024 harvest. We do often experience some windy conditions during August and September in the Hunter Valley, and unfortunately this year the timing of those winds coincided with the flowering period and fruit set for the upcoming vintage. This, together with the vines 'resting' after a couple of relatively high yielding vintages led to a 40% crop reduction on the Braemore vineyard in 2024.
The lower crop, and very dry and warm to hot conditions during January, led to one of the earliest and fastest vintages I have experience in my nearly 40 years of making wine in the Hunter Valley. Sugar levels, which provide an indication of the ripeness of the grapes seemed to suge ahead of phenological fruit and flavour ripeness, so it was a matter of 'holding our nerve' and letting the fruit get to a level where the flavour/acid balance were in the zone regardless of sugar/potential alcohol level.
We started picking the Braemore vineyard on Tuesday the 23rd of January, and it was evident that the whole vineyard was ripening very quickly and evenly so it was a mad rush to get all the fruit off the vine as quickly as possible.We managed to harvest the whole vineyard in just 4 days. -
In the Winery
The hand-picked fruit was run across our state-of-the-art vibrating sorting table to ensure that only the absolute highest quality bunches get through to the press. The grapes are then whole-bunch pressed to minimise phenolics, and fermented with our specially selected neutral yeast to enhance the varietal purity. At the completion of the fermentation, the wine spent four weeks resting on its yeast lees prior to preparing for bottling.
Whilst this vintage has probably the highest alcohol level we've seen over the last 25 years, stylistically the 2024 Braemore has a wonderful generosity of fruit whilst maintaining its classic shape with impeccable purity and precision. The internal concentration and intensity/energy are always a hallmark of this pedigree vineyard.12.2% ABV
Tasting Notes
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Appearance & Aroma
Sourced from one of the Hunter Valley’s most celebrated Semillon vineyards, this wine is star bright pale lemon with a vibrant green hue.
The nose is expressive and enticing with classic fresh citrus, apple and starfruit notes with hints of borage flowers and wet river stones.
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Palate & Finish
The palate is immediately approachable with a crisp acid around a core of Tahitian lime, yuzu, granny smith apple fruits with notes of chamomile, lemon sorbet and wilted herbs. The 2024 Braemore is classically shaped yet intense and flavoursome with excellent length and purity of fruit.
The mouth-watering acidity provides impeccable balance and precision ensuring the wine can be enjoyed as a youngster, or cellared.
WHEN TO DRINK
The 2024 edition is certainly a wine that will provide great current drinking pleasure as well as being an absolute belter for the cellar.
The Vineyards
Whilst I have always applied a no compromise, attention to detail approach to my winemaking, I truly believe that 90% of the quality lies in the vineyard. The key to great wine is ‘keeping it simple’ to preserve that potential quality from the vine through to the bottle - Andrew Thomas