Wine Review: Tyrrell's Vat 1 Hunter Valley Semillon 2016

In today's tasting Master of Wine, David Allen, examines a style he feels is under-appreciated - the classic, unoaked, bottle aged style of a classic Hunter Valley Semillon, Tyrrell's Vat 1 Semillon from the 2016 vintage

Tyrrell's Wines is a leading Australian producer based for more than 160 years in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. It also has vineyards in Heathcote in Victoria. Figures such as Dan Tyrrell (who oversaw 69 vintages until his death in 1959) and the larger-than-life Murray Tyrrell are some of the most important figures in the Australian wine industry. Current winemaker Chris Tyrrell represents the fifth generation; his oldest vines were planted by his great-great-grandfather.

Unusually for a well-established Australian producer, it is best known for its Semillon and Chardonnay white wines. However it does make award-winning reds, particularly from Shiraz, and is also known as a pioneer of growing Pinot Noir in the country.

Murray Tyrrell was a champion of white wines in the Hunter Valley, and particularly Semillon – this was apparently at least partly driven by his giving up smoking in 1970, which was said to have enhanced his tasting abilities with white wines but deadened his palate for reds.

The company's traditional standard bearer is its Vat 1 Semillon. It is Australia's most award-winning white wine, with an impressive tally of nearly 5500 medals and over 330 trophies. The wine was first made in old oak in 1963, but since 1990 has been the archetype of the Hunter Valley style – fermented, settled, and blended in stainless steel before spending a couple of years aging in bottle. Murray Tyrrell regarded this as a wine for immediate release, but his son Bruce established the age-worthy credentials of the wine by hiding 1000 cases of the 1989 vintage from his father in a corner of a warehouse and releasing them in 1996.

Tyrrell's has also gained acclaim for the Vat 47 Chardonnay, an early Australian attempt to use Burgundian methods, including new oak. It was initially regarded with dismay, gaining a mark of 6 out of 20 at the Brisbane Wine Show, before going on to be one of the company's most famous wines.

In addition, the Vat 6 Pinot Noir famously won best in show at the 1979 Wine Olympiad in Paris. The practice of using "vat-numbered" labels started in 1961 to denote single-vineyard wines, though it now includes multi-site blends.

The Tyrrell's Hunter Valley estate has 11 vineyards with vines that are more than 100 years old, which are used to make the Sacred Sites range. One of these releases, Old Patch Shiraz, was awarded a 100-point score by critic James Suckling for four consecutive vintages; 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2019 (none was made in '15 and '16). The HVD vineyard, planted in 1908, is believed to be the the world's oldest Chardonnay plot. In all, the company owns eight of the 11 oldest vineyards in New South Wales.

In all, Tyrrell's now has 111 hectares (274 acres) in the Hunter Valley planted to Shiraz, Chardonnay, Semillon and Pinot Noir. In Heathcote there are a further 26ha (65 acres) of Shiraz.

To find out more about this wine, its pricing and availability follow this link to the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/ty...

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