Brokenwood ILR Reserve Hunter Semillon 2015
- 95
- $100
- Drink by: 2022-2032
Share
This is the top dog from the Brokenwood stable (does one use a stable for dogs?). ILR, released only after a long spell in the cellar, is a tribute to their long term, peripatetic, former chief winemaker, Iain Leslie Riggs. It is whatever is the best wine from any of their vineyards. For the first time, the wine from their Murphy’s Vineyard, planted back in 1966, won the gig. If you are not familiar with that vineyard, it is in the Lovedale sub-region, so not a bad pedigree. Hand-harvesting, the fruit is crushed, chilled and pressed, fermented with neutral yeasts plus no oak or malo. Sounds so simple. There is a fine minerally background with serious length and a persistent finish. Notes of citrus, lemons and limes, pears, crisp green apples and more. Finely balanced, a seductive texture, excellent length and even the emergence of some early complexity. It already has some development, but it has many years ahead. In the year since first tasted, this has already picked up a little and shows every sign of doing so to a greater extent.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
