Gundog Indomitus Albus Hunter Semillon 2025
- 93
- $40
- Drink by: 2026-2034
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No one is ever going to convince me that this wine was not named by a movie fan. Jurassic Park meets Harry Potter. Alan Grant and Albus Dumbledore would be proud. As a wine, it is the Hunter Valley Semillon which enjoyed fermentation with wild yeast in barrel. In addition, the team left a portion of the wine on skins for an extended maceration period of 175 days (for those unfamiliar, this is an extremely long time). Maturation was for a further six months. As well as the fruit traditionally harvested in the Lower Hunter Valley, there are also parcels from the Upper Hunter. Just 140 dozen were made. Yellow straw in colour, this is ripe and complex, very much with a seductive textural aspect and some influence from phenolics. There are notes of beeswax, citrus and apricot skins. A line of zesty acidity runs throughout and there is excellent length here. This wine may raise a few eyebrows with some people, but it will also thrill many wine lovers. Enjoy it over the next six to eight years, during which time it will surely improve even further. Recent vintages may have appeared slightly more impressive at this early stage (not that this wine isn’t, of course), but this one will surely match them in time.
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.
