SIGNORELLO SEMILLON

[Jerry D Mead]

Had the 1997 Signorello "Napa Valley" Semillon...don't know the price as it was a Christmas gift and I'm too lazy to call Ray Signorello and check. I'm pleased to say it is a wine that Dan Berger would hate, which means it is overtly, heavily and beautifully oaked. Yes!, there's some fruit, but it does play second fiddle to the lovely vanilla and smoky barrel char aromas and flavors. Ripe fig and very ripe apple with some spice (not Gewurz spice...more in the nutmeg realm)...very long, wood-influenced after-flavors.

I can't score it for value because I don't know the price...for quality give it a 95.

JDM

[This message has been edited by Wine Curmudgeon (edited 01-20-99).]

[danberger]

Jerry:
This wine is an utter failure. It has NO, ZERO varietal character and never has had any, in any prior vintage or this one. Any connection between this wine and Semillon grapes is purely coincidental. I know Semillon and this is no Semillon. It is oak juice, pure and simple. Anyone who would sully good quality Semillon grapes with this kind of treatment has no understanding of the grape at all. Of course, I assume poor-quality Semillon was used, which absolves the producer of any responsibility here. Lacking any character whatever in the fruit, the wine maker must have figured he could compromise: ``Look, I got no fruit here, so I might as well oak the hell out of it.'' Of course, the reason you like this stuff is all your years of Pall Malls and Camels, leaving you with a palate that understands burnt wood more than grapes. And since I know you so well, I know you are the champion two-by-four chewer of all time, and when it comes to wood-gnawing, I don't hold a candle to you. But when it comes to Semillon evaluation, leave the real work to the professionals.
TBC?

[Jerry D Mead]

Two points of rebuttal:

1. I never smoked Camels! (And haven't smoked anything in 8 years...even a doobie.)

2. People should understand that our views are so radically different on wood that when you judge for me at the New World International, I don't let you taste serious vinifera wines...you get to taste the native American varieties, Vitus labrusca and Vitus rotundafolia(sp?), French-American hybrids and fruit and berry wines. You are a good and fair judge of these often unfairly maligned varieties, mostly because they don't have any oak. Can't let you near the Chardonnays, Sauvignon Blancs or Cabernets, because you'd throw out too many of the best wines for having even a moderate amount of wood.

As I've told you many times, Dan, if God intended wine to taste like grapes, HE wouldn't have invented oak trees.

Curmy