Wine Recommendation
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Wine Recommendation

Wine:Graeser Winery 2003 Semillon  (Napa Valley)

Graeser Winery

2003 Semillon
(Napa Valley)



Napa Valley – home to some of the greatest and most productive Cabernet Sauvignon producers in America – is my beat. So, whenever I get the opportunity to recommend a wine from the region that’s not a Cabernet, I’m all over it. Variety is the spice of life and this Semillon, while it doesn’t have spice, certainly has many layers of complexity.

It’s even seductive with floral notes in the nose. In the mouth, it’s simply gorgeous with voluptuous, sweet viscous fruit. The wine is in balance, but it needs time because this is a white wine with red wine sensibilities. It’ll age nicely I believe, for another five or six years.

The fruit was sourced from Don Myers’ valley floor vineyard, north of the town of Calistoga. The wine went through partial barrel fermentation in neutral American and French oak before the whole passed through stainless steel. The listed alcohol is 13.9 percent. There were less than 300 cases produced.

Reviewed February 15, 2007 by Alan Goldfarb.

The Wine

Winery: Graeser Winery
Vintage: 2003
Wine: Semillon
Appellation: Napa Valley
Grape: Semillon
Price: 750ml $23.50

Review Date: 2/15/2007

The Reviewer

Alan Goldfarb

Alan Goldfarb has been writing about and reviewing wine for 17 years. His reviews have been published in the St. Helena Star, San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Examiner, Decanter, and Wine Enthusiast, among others. Not once has he used a point system, star system, or an iconic symbol to quantify a wine. What counts in Mr. Goldfarb’s criteria when judging a wine is: how it tastes in the glass; is it well-constructed; its food compatibility; and presence of redeeming regional attributes.