Western Australian wine producers reckon they can’t keep up with growing consumer demand for semillon sauvignon blanc from the state’s South West.
It’s a problem many producers have moved to solve by grafting over red wine vineyards to semillon and sauvignon blanc varieties.
Grower Neil Delroy, who manages about 700 hectares of vines, has converted most of the red vines on his 91ha Pemberton vineyard to white varieties, and predominately semillon and sauvignon blanc grapes.
About 94 per cent of the vineyard now carries white vines because Mr Delroy said there was increasing demand for white fruit from the southern areas of WA.
According to recent statistics from ACNeilsen, Australian sales of WA semillon sauvignon blanc blends increased by 31 per cent last year, while sales of chardonnay eased 3 per cent.
Lenton Brae has been producing semillon sauvignon blanc for 20 consecutive years.
Lenton Brae winemaker Ed Tomlinson said the winery decided to devote more time to the blend in 1997 rather than focusing on a straight sauvignon blanc.
“We decided that there was no way that we could make sauvignon blanc consistently that would compete with Marlborough producers in New Zealand, but there was no way they could compete with our semillon sauvignon blanc,” Mr Tomlinson said.
“Semillon requires an element of warmth to get the body and texture, and they don’t quite have that.”
Ferngrove Vineyards chief executive officer Anthony Wilkes said sauvignon blanc and semillon sauvignon blanc had become the winery’s biggest selling wines, growing from 20 per cent of total sales to 35 per cent during the past four years.
“Every year we are selling more and we can’t see it easing up,” Mr Wilkes said.
Rob Bowen, who manages the winemaking activities of Houghton Wines, Goundrey Wines, Amberley Estate and Brookland Valley Wines, said the wineries were producing more of the blend than they ever had done and that consumer demand continued to grow.
“I’m confident that semillon sauvignon blanc from WA will get worldwide recognition,” he said.
