Some wines make a statement. Semillon makes a memory.
It doesn’t announce itself. Doesn’t crowd the glass with swagger. It waits. Quiet. Patient. Almost shy. But if you are lucky you learn to listen to that kind of wine early. You learn that stillness has its own kind of power.
I entered the wine trade in Sydney Australia at 16, more ambition than sense. I spent weekends stacking bottles and listening to conversations I didn’t fully understand.
From the start, semillon was always there. Unassuming. Local. Underrated. It felt as much a part of the landscape as the cracks of thunder on a hot summer’s night.
Tyrrells’ Vat 1 was the first expensive wine I hand sold, claiming to know the family. I didn’t at the time although I have since got to know many of the clan including Bruce, Jane, Chris and Johnny.
Semillon was also the wine I brought on my first almost-romantic picnic. A warm day, a nervous plan, a bottle of Hunter Semillon, and a dozen oysters from the Sydney Fish Market. I thought I was being suave. Turns out I wasn’t. The oysters were warm. The conversation was cool. My hopes, like the tide, receded gently. I remember wondering if I’d picked the wrong wine. Looking back, it wasn’t the wine that let me down.
But that’s semillon. It doesn’t flatter. It doesn’t compensate. It asks you to grow into it, to meet it where it stands, not where you wish it would go.
I did. Years later, with more miles and fewer illusions. I’ve followed semillon across continents, waxy and noble in Bordeaux, textured in Margaret River, opulent in the Barossa, delightfully surprising in Stellenbosch. It has taught me that while place matters so does the variety that chooses to grow there. When a grape tells you something across borders and vintages, it becomes more than a wine. It becomes a conversation. A companion.
Still, when I think of semillon, I think of Margaret. My grandmother.
She wasn’t a wine person. She was a doctor. Whip-smart, compassionate, endlessly curious. She built a life out of service, and she built me too. She was my home base: my confidante, my compass, my cheer squad.
In her later years, dementia crept in like fog. At first, it stole details. Then it stole stories. Eventually, it began to steal her. I spent a lot of time walking beside her down that unlit, lonely road, trying to hold on to the pieces of her that still flickered.
One spring evening, I brought fish and chips to Bondi Beach. Something simple we used to do. I added a bottle of Peter Lehmann Margaret Semillon. Chosen not for its accolades (though it has them), but for the name on the label.
We sat on a bench watching the waves inhale and exhale. She was quiet, staring at the water. I poured her a small glass, and she took it without much interest. But then she glanced at the bottle.
She blinked. Tilted it. Looked again.
‘Margaret?’ she said, her voice full of surprised delight. ‘That’s me!’
And then, laughter. The kind that bubbles up from somewhere deep. Giddy. Innocent. Joyful. A moment of pure, unfiltered presence. For a brief, luminous instant, the disease let go. She looked at me and grinned, her eyes suddenly bright, and I saw her, as she had been: brilliant, playful, completely alive.
We sipped the wine. It was elegant, reserved but oh so complex. It didn’t try to impress us. It just sat in the glass and did its quiet work, like she had done all her life. We watched the tide roll in and slide back out again, and it felt like we were part of something outside time.
That’s what semillon gave me. Not just a wine. A memory. One further shared moment of clarity with someone I loved beyond words.
I’ve opened first growths and cult cabernets. I’ve tasted unicorn bottles and perfectly matured icons. But none have moved me like that one did.
Because here’s the truth: wine isn’t about prestige. It’s not about scoring points or collecting labels like trophies. It’s about people. It’s about the way a smell can bring someone back. The way a grape can hold a place, or a person, inside a bottle. It’s about the joy of remembering something just when you thought it was gone.
Semillon taught me that. It taught me to listen to quiet things. To be patient. To wait for the light to come through.
So here’s to you, semillon. Thanks for being awkward with me when I was young, and luminous with me when I needed comfort. For being more than fashionable. For ageing with integrity. For carrying memory in every restrained, remarkable sip.
And here’s to Margaret, the woman, and the wine, both understated, both brilliant, both unforgettable.
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