Sémillon

Sémillon is a versatile variety, used to make single varietal wines, blends, straightforward whites, and pricey, world-renowned dessert wines. Depending on the climate and local growing conditions, it is something of a chameleon for wine enthusiasts. As Sémillon  can be vinified dry to sweet, with high to moderate acidity, and oaked or unoaked, climate is the chief influence on Sémillon and consequently on the choice of wine style (bone-dry versus a luscious dessert wine).

Working the Land:

Does soil influence the flavor of the final wine?

Traditionalists answer unequivocally “Yes!” Soil is a key element of terroir, the natural environment in which vines grow, combined with climate (temperature, rainfall), topography (altitude, drainage, slope, aspect) and sunlight.

A more unorthodox view holds that the influence of soil on what you taste in the glass is a myth. Maynard Amerine and Ann Noble, two famous names at U.C. Davis, California’s premier wine school and research facility, conducted a study on the topic. Though the study is based on Chardonnay grapes, they concluded that the following holds true for all wine grapes: “no outstanding sensory differences were observed in wines produced from different soil type locations.” The key word is “sensory” (sight, smell, taste). They are not claiming that soil doesn’t affect vine behavior (yield, growth cycle, etc.). 

The subject is most certainly up for further debate. That said, here is a brief review of how Sémillon, according to the classic view, expresses itself in the glass, based on the type of soil in which it is grown.

Sémillon is relatively easy to cultivate and consistently crops six to eight tons of grapes per acre, without intervention. The variety ripens early and in warmer climates it can have an almost pinkish hue. Since Sémillon is thin-skinned, there is a risk of sunburn in hotter climates, so it is best suited to areas with sunny days and cool nights.

In California, a disproportionately large amount of history exists on clones for a grape variety that commands such minimal land. In 1958, U.C. Davis’ Harold Olmo identified Sémillon 02 from old vines (Wente 1 v37) collected from the Wente property. It was and remains the key cultivar choice to this day. Five other Sémillon clones were selected from California vineyards in the late 1950s and early ‘60s (03, 04, 05, 06 and 07), though the FPS database contains little information about the source of those selections other than names of vineyards. Six other clones have since been added or are in the process of being added.

In the United States, Sémillon's upright growth lends itself to vertical-shoot-positioned systems and it should be cordon trained and spur pruned due to its larger cluster size.