Late last year I tasted a range of more than 60 Australian Semillons and Semillon blends. Since my first trip to Australia in 1981 (can it really be that long ago?) I have been a fan of classic mature Hunter Valley Semillon, the old-style wines that Lindemans used to make by picking the fruit and bottling the wine early (not a barrel in sight) and then stashing them away for years while they developed burnt toast with lime marmalade characters.
In the wake of the world’s love affair with oak, this style has waned rather and a high proportion of Australia’s Semillon has either been pulled out to make way for a more fashionable variety or been picked much riper and matured in oak to produce, paradoxically perhaps, a much earlier-maturing style of wine. And then there has been a huge surge, particularly in Western Australia, in blending Semillon grapes with Sauvignon to produce a more refreshing, early-drinking style – a sort of Sauvignon with ballast.
I was looking forward to this tasting and, in retrospect, was a bit disappointed by it. If I detect sufficient interest, I’ll publish my full tasting notes on purple pages. Meanwhile I can say that this was my discovery of the tasting. McWilliams Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2003 Hunter Valley, arguably the gold standard of Hunter Semillon was looking very good and very ageworthy, but this is hardly news.
Cockfighter's Ghost is a relatively inexpensive label (selling from just over Aus$10 in Australia, according to winesearcher.com) “named after a ghostly steed, said to reside up our vineyard” according to the website of the parent company Pooles Rock. Pooles Rock is the brainchild of Sydney merchant banker David Clarke, a long-serving director of the McGuigan family’s wine enterprises who was one of the Australian partners who bought into Domaine de la Pousse d’Or in Volnay way back and first bought the Pooles Rock vineyard in the Broke district of the Hunter Valley in and subsequently added the old Simon Whitlam vineyard to it. They now make what they call “best of region” wines at several levels from different regions all over Australia but the Hunter is home and in this vast line-up of Semillons I was impressed by the amount of fruit flavour in this refreshing wine with just 11 per cent alcohol. There are green fruit flavours, a certain tautness that suggests the wine could be drunk any time over the next two or three years, lots of florality and tanginess. It’s far from the most complex wine you will ever drink but is a very true example of youthful Hunter Semillon, one of the classics of the wine world.
It comes in an attractively labelled, screwcapped bottle, costs around £7-8 in the UK, and there is even rumoured to be a Australian rugby connection – what more could you want? The UK importer is Corks Out tel 0161 881 9663 and therefore stockists tend to be more northern than southern for a change, the likes of Winos of Oldham, T C Wines (Liverpool), John Booth, the Totnes Wine Company in Devon, the Halifax Wine Company, Corkscrew Wines of Carlisle and the wonderfully named Plato Harrison of Kirkby Lonsdale.
Winesearcher lists four stockists in Australia and below is a list of international importers of Pooles Rock/Cockfighter’s Ghost wines (love the name of the Mexican importer) taken from their website which, apart from the ponderous Bach(?), is rather good.
Export Manager
Mr Clive Baylis
Phone: +61 8 8339 6897
Fax: +61 8 8339 6167
Email: cbaylis@poolesrock.com.au
New Zealand
Macvine International – Mr Michael Jemison
Phone: +64 3 570 2118
Fax: +64 3570 2119
Email: macvine@xtra.co.nz
South Pacific
Cabron Wine Agents- Michael Miall
Phone: + 61 2 4998 3448
Fax: + 61 2 4998 3464
Email: cabron@hunterlink.net.au
Guam
Marc Fahey & Associates – Marc Fahey
Phone: +61 (2) 9818 5555
Fax: +61 (2) 9816 5566
Email: marcfahey@bigpond.com
Philippines
Zen Asia Inc – Lester A Harvey
Phone: +63 (2) 816 0317 18
Fax: +63 (2) 817 4152
Email: lester@zenasiainc.com
Thailand
Bangkok Liquor Co Ltd – Kitti S. Chaikul
Phone: +66 (2) 674 7901
Fax: +66 (2) 212 6890
Email: kitti@bangkokliquor.com
Singapore
Excaliber Trading – Audrey Lee
Phone: +65 (6280) 1838
Fax: +65 (6280) 0389
Email: excaltrade@pacific.net.sg
Hong Kong – Nick Pegna
Berry Brothers & Rudd
Phone: +852 (2110) 1680
Fax: +852 (2114) 0996
Email: nick.pegna@bbr.com.hk
Canada – BC & Alberta
Nexus Wine – Mr Rod Phillips
Phone: +1 778 883 8562
Fax: +1 604 648 9439
Email: rphillips@nexuswine .com
Canada – Nova Scotia
Wine Visions – Joel Fornier
Phone: +1 (909) 443 9382
Fax: +1 (902) 445 2293
Email: jofour@hfx.eastlink.ca
Canada – Ontario
The Russell Woodman agency – Mr Jason Woodman
Phone: +1 416 767 5114
Fax: + 416 767 9008
Email: woodmanwine@sprint.ca
United Kingdom
Corks Out Ltd – Mr Graham Thomson
Phone: +44 161 881 9663
Fax: +44 161 881 9667
Email: sales@corksout.co.uk
Ireland
Octavius Ltd – Michael Gramsch
Phone: +353 (0) 71 915 3555
Fax: +353 (0) 71 915 4568
Email: michael@octavius.ie
United States of America
The Ravensvale Group – Jane Delaney & John Evans
Phone: + 1 203 552 9275
Fax: + 1 212 656 1376
Email: ravensvale@aol.com
Mexico
Commercial Goal Achievers, SA de CV -
Phone: +52 (55) 8502 1768
Fax: +52 (55) 8502 1769
Email: hernanfb@commercial-goal.com
Sweden
Manhattan Wine & Spirit – Thomas Larsson
Phone: +46 (0) 8-544 723 53
Fax: +46 (0) 8 792 40 83
Email: thomas@manhattanws.se
Germany
Pacific Wine Company – Gunda Mundt
Phone: +49 (0) 6103 280 245
Fax: +49 (0) 6103 280 246
Email: cwc.mundt@t-online.de