Fraser Gallop Estate

Western Australia, South West Australia

Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

Margaret River

$24 AUD

Release Price

Drink Window

12%

ABV

3.14

pH

7.4

TA

0.4

RS

Nose

Citrus notes of Lime, Passionfruit, Jalapeno and Citrus Zest.

Palate

A wine of excellent freshness zippy acidity, poise and length. Lime flavours green pineapple, cumquat, and some passionfruit. Similar in profile to a Gin and Tonic on a long limey aftertaste and best served chilled. (6℃)

Growing Conditions

The 2022 vintage was set up by one of the coolest and wettest years in 2021 with 1165mm of rainfall recorded in that year. So, around Christmas time the switch was turned on it became one of the driest and warmest growing seasons in recent memory which would have been a problem for our dry grown vineyard normally however the sub-soil moisture stayed late into the growing season feeding water to the vines deep taproots 2-3meters below the surface, as a result the vines were happy.
So ,the growing season started with the warmest January since 2012 and a heat wave from the 18th -22nd January gave concern for sunburnt grapes however minimal leaf plucking was done so it was somewhat saved. Only 0.6mm rain was recorded for January.
February was the hottest since 2001 with only 10mm rain falling in the month (cf. 80mm in 2021)
In March the warm conditions continued with an Ave Max Temp of 27.1℃ and very little rain until a downpour at the end of March on the 27th.
The vintage was like the 2018 in that there was very little bird damage as the Marri blossom was prolific being the main food source for the Silvereyes instead of grapes.
The dry season also meant the quality of the grapes was very clean with no disease, the only thing to worry us a little was the prevalence of bushfires, however most occurred to the East, South and North of us however never close enough to cause smoke taint in our grapes.
Keith Mugford from our neighbour Mosswood Vineyards says you would have to go back to 1983 to find a vintage with similar conditions as 2022, in that year their wines were legendary so there is high optimism for our 2022 vintage wines.

Harvest

The Sauvignon Blanc grapes were machine harvested at Wilyabrup 1km from our vineyard in the cool hours of the morning and delivered promptly to the crush pad. The Semillon was machine picked from the estate vineyard and delivered to the crush pad in the early hours of the morning.

Bottling

10th May 2022

Winemaking

The Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes were destemmed and crushed and gently pumped through a must chiller on its way to the press to get the grapes down to 8ºC in our Bucher XPF 80 press. With the automatic Ortal computerised pressing programme the quality of pressing was superb with minimal rotations of the press.
The juice was then fermented in stainless steel tanks to maintain the fresh bright fruit flavours and aromatics using two different yeasts.
A small proportion of Sauvignon Blanc was fermented in French Oak barrels to provide texture and interest to the blend. Sulphites were added to the wine on completion of fermentation to deter Malolactic Fermentation from occurring and to preserve the fruit flavours of the wine. The wine was protein and cold stabilised prior to blending, cross flow filtering and bottling.