Semillon: Bordeaux's Golden Grape, Taste and Food

Semillon (Sémillon in France) is a white grape from Bordeaux that makes three very different wines: rich dry white Bordeaux blended with Sauvignon Blanc, the sweet noble-rot wines of Sauternes, and the lean, lemony, long-lived Semillon of Australia’s Hunter Valley. It is rarely famous on its own, but it is the reason many of those wines have their texture and their ability to age. If you like white wines with body but not heavy oak, it is well worth knowing.

What Semillon tastes like

Wine Folly’s profile for dry Semillon is medium-bodied, with medium acidity, no tannin and 11–14% alcohol. Its main flavors, per Wine Folly, are lemon, beeswax, peach, chamomile and a saline note. Acidity is the fresh, mouth-watering tang in a wine; Semillon has less of it than Sauvignon Blanc, which is one reason the two are so often blended.

Style changes the picture a lot. Wine Folly describes four:

Style	What to expect (Wine Folly)
Young and unoaked	Zesty and crisp, with citrus and apple; Hunter Valley wines are lean and bright
Oaked	Fuller and richer, with vanilla, toast and spice; Graves and Pessac-Léognan make full-bodied, dry, oaked whites
Aged	Honey, fig and toasted nuts; old Hunter Valley wines turn oily, nutty and waxy
Sweet (noble rot)	Rich, viscous and honeyed, with apricot, honey and saffron, as in Sauternes

Wine Australia lists toast, lemon, wax and honey as typical Semillon flavors. In our view, the change from crisp lemon to toast and honey with age is what makes this grape special: the same wine can taste like two different ones ten years apart.

Where Semillon grows

Wine Folly, citing University of Adelaide data for 2021, gives these plantings:

Country	Area
France	10,234 ha (25,289 acres)
Australia	4,556 ha (11,258 acres)
South Africa	1,121 ha (2,770 acres)
Chile	849 ha (2,098 acres)
Argentina	767 ha (1,895 acres)
World total	18,693 ha (46,191 acres)

Wine Folly adds that the grape comes from Bordeaux, declined sharply there in the late 19th century after phylloxera and disease, and reached Australia in the early 19th century. In South Africa it was once the most planted grape of all, a place now held by Chenin Blanc.

Bordeaux: dry white blends

In Bordeaux, Sémillon is the second white grape. The Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB) puts it at 42% of the region’s white plantings, just behind Sauvignon Blanc at 45%, with Muscadelle at 5%. The CIVB’s guide to white Bordeaux explains the partnership: Sauvignon Blanc brings the acidity and the passion fruit and grapefruit aromas, while Sémillon is less acidic and adds texture.

Wine Folly describes the dry whites of Graves and Pessac-Léognan, south of the city of Bordeaux, as full-bodied, oaked and age-worthy. Pessac-Léognan has 1,880 hectares (4,646 acres) of vines, and the CIVB describes its whites, blends of Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Sémillon and Muscadelle, as complex and lively, with citrus, white fruit and mineral notes and the ability to age. The CIVB describes two broad styles of white Bordeaux: steel-fermented wines that are lively and fruity, with citrus freshness, and oak-aged wines that are richer, with ripe stone fruit, hazelnut and a fuller texture. Our French wine guide explains how Bordeaux fits into the country’s appellation system.

Sauternes: sweet wine from noble rot

Sémillon’s most famous wine is sweet. In Sauternes and Barsac, south of Graves, autumn mists encourage noble rot (Botrytis cinerea), a fungus that shrivels ripe grapes and concentrates their sugar. The ODG Sauternes & Barsac, the appellations’ governing body, puts the blend at about 80% Sémillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc, with a few percent of Muscadelle; Sémillon, it says, is round and rich and brings aromatic finesse, smoothness and complexity. Our guide to Sauternes covers the appellation, the 1855 classification and how to serve it.

Hunter Valley: Australia’s original

The Hunter, in New South Wales, is Australia’s oldest producing wine region, with vineyards from the 1860s still in production, according to Wine Australia. It has one of the wettest, most humid climates of any Australian region, and most of its rain falls during harvest. Wine Australia also notes that Australian Semillon is often picked early to keep its natural acidity.

The result is a style found nowhere else. Wine Australia calls Hunter Semillon one of Australia’s classic dry white styles: high in acid, low in alcohol and unoaked, fresh, tart and lemony when young and capable of ageing for decades. It says the best versions come from the Lower Hunter Valley, where Semillon does best on sandy alluvial flats, and that barrel fermentation is rarely used there.

Elsewhere in Australia

Wine Australia counts 4,570 hectares (11,293 acres) of Semillon in Australia (2015) and notes that conditions there don’t suit botrytis-affected wines and that the grape is often harvested early and made into a dry, light-bodied style. It names three regional expressions:

• Hunter Valley: the age-worthy, unoaked style above.
• Barossa Valley: varietal Semillon from old vines, some dating to the early 1900s, sometimes with time in oak.
• Margaret River: crisp, juicy Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blends, sometimes oak fermented or matured.

Our Australian wine guide covers these regions in more detail.

How to read the label

• “Semillon” on a New World label means a varietal wine. In Australia, “Hunter Valley” or “Hunter” points to the lean, unoaked style.
• “Semillon Sauvignon Blanc” or “SSB” is a blend, typical of Margaret River.
• “Bordeaux Blanc”, “Graves” or “Pessac-Léognan” on a French label usually means a Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon blend; the grapes often aren’t named.
• “Sauternes” or “Barsac” means a sweet wine, mostly Sémillon.
• The vintage matters more than usual. A Hunter Semillon a few years old tastes very different from a just-released one, and in our view it is worth seeking out a bottle with five or more years of age.

For how Semillon compares with other whites by body and sweetness, see our guide to the types of white wine.

Food pairing

Wine Folly matches food to the style:

Semillon style	Wine Folly’s suggestions
Dry, unoaked (Hunter Valley)	Salmon, mushroom risotto, shellfish
Dry, general	Fuller or meatier fish, sushi, goat cheese salad
Oaked (white Bordeaux)	Roast chicken, creamy risotto, lobster Thermidor
Sweet (Sauternes style)	Blue cheese, salted nuts

Wine Australia suggests fresh oysters, shellfish, white fish, chicken, salads and goat and sheep’s milk cheeses, and the CIVB pairs oak-aged white Bordeaux with fish or poultry, even in rich sauces. We’d pour a young Hunter Semillon with oysters or grilled fish and lemon, and save an oaked white Bordeaux for roast chicken. Our guide to wine with salmon has more seafood ideas.

Good-value bottles to try

We don’t name specific Semillon bottles on this page yet. Our picks follow how we rate wine: every wine needs a published critic score for a named vintage and a US price checked at two or more retailers, and we haven’t completed that check for a Semillon.

What to look for: in our view, plain Bordeaux Blanc and Graves blends are the most affordable way to taste Sémillon in a classic setting, and a Margaret River Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc is an easy, fresh alternative. Under our thresholds, a wine scoring 88 to 89 points is a Great Value at $15 or less and a Good Value at $20 or less.

How to serve it

• Temperature: Wine Folly suggests 45–55°F (7–12°C), colder for sweet styles.
• Glass: a standard white wine glass; Wine Folly says decanting usually isn’t needed.
• Aging: Wine Folly says dry Semillon typically improves for 5 to 10 years, and sweet Sauternes-style wines for 10 to 15 years or more, sometimes beyond 50 in exceptional vintages. Wine Australia says the best Hunter Semillon can age for decades.

Tip: If a young Hunter Semillon tastes too sharp for you, don’t pour it away. Put the rest of the case in a cool, dark place and open the next bottle in five years. In our view, that is the best way to understand what the fuss is about.