2007 JM Cellars Late Harvest Semillon (375 ml)

 

This will be a “once every five years” wine as it is a serious pain to make but boy do we love it!

Harvest 2007 was completed on October 31st with the exception of the late harvest Semillon which hung on vine until we picked it on December 17th.  Each week we would head out to the vineyard, walk to the middle of our lonely rows of Semillon, and smell the air to see if we could detect any sour rot occurring.  When we knew all was well, we would head back home and wait for the sugars to build up.

Finally, we picked the fruit at 36 brix (roughly 36% sugar) on December 17th,  pressed as much juice as we could from the raisin-like grapes and were left with three barrels of sweet nectar.  We aged the wine for five months in used oak imparting a light vanilla flavor to the sweet apple and pear flavors of the juice.  The final wine has residual sugar of 18%, with enough acid to make it a wine you can serve as an aperitif or as a traditional dessert wine after dinner.  Remember this is a 375 ml. (half) bottle.


Blend
100% Semillon