The golden grape of the Sauternais, at home there since at least the early eighteenth century and once so widespread that white vines covered more of the Gironde than red. Its thin skin is its genius: when the Ciron's autumn mists bring Botrytis cinerea, Sémillon concentrates into the honeyed, waxy nectar of Sauternes rather than rotting.
Dry, it is the quiet half of the white Bordeaux duet — breadth, wax and stone fruit to Sauvignon's citrus nerve — and in old Graves blends it ages into toasted, lanolin-scented profundity. Its acreage has fallen with the white vineyard's, but no grape is more Bordelais in temperament: patient, unshowy, built for time.