Thorne & Daughters Tin Soldier Semillon Gris 2023

Tin Soldier is a skin-fermented Semillon gris. Semillon gris is almost unique to South Africa, and a vestige of a time when Semillon was the grape on which the South African wine industry was built.

Tasting Notes
The colour of the wine is unusual, having taken some bright copper tones from about a week’s fermentation on skins. The wine shows aromas of ripe apricot, Thai basil, nutmeg and toasted pistachio, redolent of baklava. Over the past couple of years, we have dialled the ripeness up a notch, making for a more complete and “grown-up” wine.

The interplay between savoury and sweet is a key point of interest in Tin Soldier, and makes for a subtle and engaging wine. The wine shows complex aromas of gingerbread, tangerine rind, dried apricots and rust. The palate has apples, créme caramel and orange cake while being dry and grippy, the tannins recalling quince and rooibos tea.

Tin Soldier 2023 – Nuts and bolts
Semillon gris – Swartland (10 years old) – alluvial soils

Platter’s ***** 95/100 Wine of the Year
Semillon vineyard produces red-skinned grapes among the predominantly white; step-up 2023’s red berries skin-fermented for onionskin hue, white portion bunch-pressed/barrel fermented. Like 2022 (4.5 stars, 93 pts), memorable fragrances of pressed flowers & oolong tea, bruised apple & quince flavours, slightly tannic, very long.

Christian Eedes, WineMag.co.za, 95/100
From Swartland Semillon Gris, 50% fermented on the skins for one week. Complex aromatics of potpourri, citrus, peach, some nuttiness and spice. The palate shows great fruit depth matched by tangy acidity, the finish gently savoury. A wine full of captivating detail.

Tim Atkin: 94/100
Tin Soldier is an equal blend of Semillon Gris and Semillon, sourced from the Kweperfontein farm on the Paardeberg. Half of the wine is fermented on skins for seven days, giving it appealing structure and density. Quince, toast and a subtle black tea bitterness are complemented by minerality and a twist of orange zest. 2022-26

About the wine
If we go back 100 years, Semillon was responsible for probably 95% of the wine made in this country. Tim James’ research on the variety suggests that the red mutation may at one time have been even more common than the white. I’m really fascinated by the idea of the kind of wines that would have been made in the old days using these mixed vineyards, and this led me to the idea of fermenting a blend of the white and red Semillon.

The Semillon gris appeals to me simply because it is incredibly South African in that no significant plantings are found anywhere else in the world. As it is, it is extremely rare now in South African vineyards, and we were obliged to pick small amounts from vines dotted around in an old white Semillon vineyard.
The one thing I wanted to avoid was making a ‘gimmick’ wine. In the run up to the first harvest I was still considering what my approach might be and while walking through the vineyard and tasting the grapes, I began to formulate an idea of fermenting white and red Semillon together on their skins to build a structure into the wine and hopefully extract some of that wonderful colour. Fermenting a white wine on skins extracts some grape tannins which a lot of modern white winemaking tends to avoid. I’ve managed the extraction very carefully to retain a delicacy in the wine, while bringing out a lot of complexity.

It is truly a wine we love.
All of our wines take their names from archetypal childrens’ toys, and Tin Soldier takes its name from Semillon’s status as the old footsoldier of the South African industry. Much like the old toy soldiers buried in the garden, Semillon has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former glory days in the Cape.