Winemaker's Comments

Hunter Valley Semillon is one of the world's most uniquely regional wine styles. The 52-year-old 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.

After the drought-breaking 2021 vintage, we were greeted with another relatively wet growing season with mother nature delivering 1150mm of rain over the vineyard during the 2021 calendar year which is well over the 760mm long-term average. November was one of the wettest months on record in the Hunter Valley.

January is the most critical period during the viticultural growing season in the Hunter, and I am happy to report that (despite some pesky rain events) the cooler season and windy conditions kept any botrytis concerns at bay providing the opportunity to get our fruit to an excellent level of ripeness and in perfect condition.

The various blocks across the Braemore vineyard were picked between the 2nd and 15th of February (7 - 10 days later than normal). The hand-picked fruit is run across our new 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 five weeks resting on its yeast lees prior to preparing for bottling in early May.

Stylistically, the 2022 Braemore is quite classically shaped (similar in style to the 2021 vintage) with impeccable purity and precision. The internal concentration and intensity are always a hallmark of this pedigree vineyard, resulting in a wine that will provide great current drinking as well as being a belter for the cellar.
The 2022 vintage is the 23nd consecutive bottling of Braemore Semillon under the Thomas Wines label.

Tasting Notes

Sourced from one of the Hunter Valley’s most celebrated Semillon vineyards, this wine displays an amazing iridescent green hue. The nose is greeted with an attractive 'tropical' lift and lime zest fruit characters which follow through to the palate with a succulent, vibrant fruit purity. The mouth-watering acidity provides impeccable balance and precision ensuring the wine can be enjoyed as a youngster, or cellared for 5 – 15+ years.

Bottled        2nd May 2022
Production Exactly 100 individually numbered Magnums (and 12 Double Magnums…)
Alcohol 11.0%