Sauvignon Blanc Gets No Respect

If the wine world has a Rodney Dangerfield, I think it must be sauvignon blanc.  I’m not sure why sauvignon blanc gets no respect, but it doesn’t.  Unlike pinot noir, which had a movie made about it (Sideways), Hollywood, and much of the wine-drinking world, largely ignores sauvignon blanc. Maybe that’s because unlike chardonnay or merlot, it’s just hard to pronounce when you want to order a glass of wine in a restaurant.

But there are a lot of good things to say about sauvignon blanc.  For one thing, it’s an incredibly flexible wine.  It is good by itself before a meal or when you just feel like a glass of wine, and it will stand up to a wide variety of food.  Though it’s a white wine, it can hold its own with hearty food that would otherwise call for a red wine, such as dishes with a tomato base.  It’s generally the only wine that can be served with salad.  But versatility isn’t all sauvignon has going for it: It’s one wine for which you don’t have to sell your first-born to buy a good bottle.

Sauvignon blanc is a green grape.  There are generally two different styles of sauvignon blanc:  dry and sweet.  When made into a dry wine, sauvignon blanc is crisp, complex and has a zing in the mouth.  When made into sweet wines, sweetness and honey balance the acidity.  The most common flavors and aromas in both the dry and the sweet styles are grass, herbs, gooseberries, guava, grapefruit, lime, melon or minerals.  Those are good tastes. Unfortunately, when sauvignon blanc is made badly, it often tastes vegetal (think about the water that you boiled an artichoke in) or even worse, it may have the flavor some critics refer to as “cat urine.”  The most common reason for “off” flavors is that the grapes received insufficient sun – either because leaves were allowed to grow over the grapes, thereby shading them or because the grapes were harvested before they were fully ripe. 

One of the most startling wine experiences I’ve had involved tasting two sauvignon blancs side-by-side.  The grapes for each wine were grown in the same vineyard, picked at the same time and made into wine by the same vintner, using the same techniques for both wines.  The only variable was the shading.  During the growing season, the vineyard master regularly walked through and carefully pulled off most of the leaves covering the grapes on one row of vines while letting the leaves grow as they chose on the next row of vines.  The grapes were then harvested at the same time and made in to two separate wines.  The wine made from grapes that received all the sun was excellent – crisp, zingy, bursting with citrus and melon flavors.  The wine made from the shaded grapes was terrible; it tasted like green pepper—not generally recognized as a source of quality wines!

The origins of sauvignon blanc are not clear, but the consensus among wine experts is that it likely originated in the Bordeaux region of France.  It is now planted throughout the world, including in Argentina, Australia, South Africa, Chile and even Washington State.  There is general consensus that the best sauvignon blancs today come from California, New Zealand and France. 

You may have had sauvignon blanc without even realizing it, thanks to Robert Mondavi.  In the 1960s, many wineries in California had made semi-sweet, simple wines out of sauvignon blanc before Robert Mondavi decided to produce and bottle a serious white wine.  Because of the reputation that sauvignon blanc had developed as cheap and uninteresting wine, Mondavi came up with a more sophisticated-sounding name – fumé blanc.  It was a great marketing tool, but unfortunately for Mr. Mondavi, he didn’t trademark the name.  It wasn’t long before a lot of other California winemakers started using the name, and thus sauvignon blanc may be marketed under either name.

Aside from the need to trim the leaf canopy, sauvignon blanc is actually a low maintenance grape for growers.  It is hardy and has relatively high yields, so wineries that plant it are almost always guaranteed a crop with plenty of grapes.  As a result, sauvignon blanc is generally quite affordable. 

Some of my favorites, all of which are available throughout Central Oregon and many of which are available in our local grocery stores are (prices are estimates):  Beringer ($12), Geyser Peak ($10), Kendall Jackson ($12) and Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull ($10), all from California; and Cloudy Bay ($10), Nobilo ($14) and Kim Crawford ($14), all from New Zealand.

Sauvignon may never get its own movie, but that doesn’t mean you should miss the opportunity to enjoy a really great alternative to chardonnay. If you can get past the challenge of pronouncing it (SEW-vĭn-yōn BLAHNK), and you find a bottle made from grapes properly handled, you’re in for a treat.