Salmon with shellfish sauce and aged semillon

Last week I was in Australia’s beautiful Hunter Valley enjoying their two great specialities semillon and shiraz.

The semillon in particular is quite unique - crisp as a sauvignon blanc or riesling when it’s young, rich as a chardonnay as it ages. At Keith Tulloch’s winery restaurant Muse Kitchen we had his 2009 Museum Release Semillon with a plate of seared salmon with a creamy shellfish sauce which it matched perfectly despite its richness as Hunter Valley semillon always retains its acidity. Although it was eight years old it still had plenty of life in it.

Older vintages of semillon like this are hard to track down in the UK which makes it worth buying it young and tucking it away. In Australia you can buy the 2009 vintage direct from Keith Tulloch for 60 Australian dollars which is roughly equivalent to £36 a bottle

For more semillon pairing ideas read this post

The best food matches for semillon and semillon-sauvignon blends

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2007 and roast chicken with tarragon

I never understand why retailers tell me it’s so hard to sell Hunter Valley semillon. It’s such a unique style of white wine which tastes (lusciously) of fresh pineapple when it’s young and of baked or grilled pineapple as it matures.

Maybe it’s because it aquires a slightly oily texture as it ages - a bit like a riesling but it’s also seductively rich and despite its low ABV (11%) a full-bodied enough partner for roast chicken as I discovered at the weekend. We tried it with a bird I’d roasted with tarragon and served at room temperature (delicious at this time of year). It was also perfect with a chicken pie I was trying out.

This particular vintage seems to have picked up an impressive number of gongs - it has 10 gold medals on the label yet is an incredibly reasonable £14.95 at slurp.co.uk and Hawkshead Wines. The 2005 vintage is even better value at £53.94 (£8.99 a bottle) at Tesco.

For more semillon pairings see this longer post.