Old Vine Sémillon

The most textural of the Damascene whites, the 2025 Sémillon moves at its own unhurried pace, unfurling in phases, and relying more on structure than obvious fruit.

The nose opens quietly and deliberately: leesy sourdough and white flowers, with the faintest breath of baking spice. The palate carries a sequence of fresh white pear, touches of brûlée, peach skin, and apricot. There’s also a fine seam of lemon candy that segues into bitter grapefruit preserve. Texture leads and acidity follows, rising from beneath the fruit, leaving a long, bittersweet finish. With time in the glass, the fruit turns vivid; white nectarine and ripe peach — a signature note for Franschhoek Sémillon.

The 2025 season in Franschhoek was built on a long, cold winter. Rainfall ran well above the long-term average, and cold units accumulated later than those of the previous season. Spring was drier than normal, and easterly winds during flowering resulted in looser bunches, and therefore lower risk of disease.

Summer brought one sharp heat peak on Christmas Day and then eased off. Véraison came late, and cool nights allowed the fruit to ripen evenly and fully. Fruit was hand-harvested between 14 and 18 February 2025.

Our Sémillon vineyards lie 22 km due east of our Bottelary Chenin Blanc vineyard, on the edges of the Franschhoek Valley. These ancient bush vine vineyards are rooted in alluvial soils — predominantly decomposed Table Mountain sandstone — with the oldest block planted in 1932. The second block, planted in 1962 against the Franschhoek Mountain foothills, has a rockier subsoil. Roughly 15% of the vines have naturally morphed into the rare Sémillon Gris mutation, which we preserve with careful pruning.

In the cellar, whole clusters were sorted and pressed using a delicate champagne cycle. The juice settled overnight before transfer to 1000L Austrian oak foudres for fermentation.

As with our Chenin Blancs, all the lees that remained in suspension (a mixture of both heavy and light lees) were retained to increase turbidity naturally. No sulphur or enzymes were added during the winemaking process, and only native yeasts carried the fermentation. Most batches only saw sulphur for the first time shortly before bottling.

Malolactic conversion was deliberately prevented to preserve the wine’s remarkable natural acidity. The wine then matured sur lie for nine months in 1000L Austrian oak foudres at 6–8 °C.

Best enjoyed within three to five years, but with careful cellaring will continue to evolve for more than a decade. With extended bottle age, expect tertiary flavours to intensify, showing the true character of old-vine Sémillon.

Total production: 1857 × 750ml and 100 × 1500ml

Bottling date: 3 December 2025

Alc: 13.04 % Vol

pH: 3.22

TA: 5.4 g/L

RS: 3.2 g/L