An ideal, relatively dry growing season from budburst through to verasion, had the vineyard looking textbook perfect and ready for the run home to harvest. A couple of pesky storms during January certainly tested our nerve, but ultimately the season was very kind indeed, leading to perfectly ripe fruit with perfectly balanced natural acidity.
A relatively generous crop was a welcome return after the miserable yields from the 2024 vintage.
We started picking the Braemore vineyard on Monday, the 27th of January, and just like last year, it was evident that the whole vineyard was ripening very quickly and evenly so we managed to hand-pick the whole vineyard in just five days.
The hand-picked fruit was run across our state-of-the-art vibrating sorting table to ensure that only the absolute highest quality bunches get through to the press. The grapes are then whole-bunch pressed to minimise phenolics, and fermented with our specially selected neutral yeast to enhance the varietal purity. At the completion of the fermentation, the wine spent six weeks resting on its yeast lees prior to preparing for bottling.
The 2025 Braemore Semillon is back to a more classically shaped style, displaying impeccable purity and precision than the slightly riper style from last vintage. The internal concentration, intensity, and tightly wound energy are always hallmarks of this pedigree vineyard. The 2025 vintage edition is certainly a wine that will provide great current drinking pleasure as well as being an absolute belter for the cellar.
Is it possible this vintage could rival the great 2013 vintage Braemore?
11.0% ABV