Semillon Fiano “Apiana” Clare Valley 2015 – Grosset

The winemaking process to produce the Semillon Fiano “Apiana” Clare Valley Grosset is gentle and uncomplicated. The fruit was crushed and de-stemmed so the free run juice could be extracted. The Fiano and Semillon were fermented separately, and blended to taste. No fining agents were used.

The vines are planted on hard, slate-like red rock with a poor orange/red loam for topsoil, and are situated on a north-eastern extreme of the Watervale at 460m altitude. The Fiano is very low yielding (less than one bottle per vine), while the Semillon is low to medium vigour. The Fiano fits neatly into Grosset’s philosophy of biodiversity and complexity in the vineyard.

For almost four decades, the Grosset ‘Springvale’ and ‘Polish Hill’ Rieslings have shown a consistency of style and quality that has made this one of Australia’s greatest wineries. The ‘hard rock’ blue slate of the Polish Hill site results in wines that are steely and magnificently ageworthy, while the red loam of the Springvale vineyard gives more open and easily accessible – though no less complex – wines. Such is Jeffrey Grosset’s attention to detail that he noted a small strip (22 metres wide by 300 metres long) in his Rockwood vineyard that produced more generously flavoured wines due to a different soil. Jeffrey is fanatical about the quality of his vineyards, which are certified organic and are hand tended, with a focus on sustainability to offset climate change. In the winery, each process is gentle and uncomplicated. No fining agents are used and sulphur is the only addition. By combining a disciplined approach and decades of experience, Grosset consistently achieves the purest expression of variety and place.