Grape Thinking » Sauvignon Blanc

Southern Right 2007 Sauvignon Blanc

Ruarri — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:00:00 +0000

A trusty wine from one of my favourite parts of the world, Southern Right as served as my favorite fish restaurant ‘Fish!’ in Borough Market, and its steely minerality on the palate and fruit forward nose coupled with a crisp and dry palate makes for a perfect wine, and the name reminds me of whale-spotting, oyster festivals and good times.

Remy Pannier 2005 Sauvignon Blanc

Ruarri — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 22:00:02 +0000

Let’s leave the citrus, passion-fruit and high acidity antipodes and head back to the Sauvignon Blanc alma marta, the good old Loire Valley. So in case you’re working a little late and haven’t gone to the store to get salmon, oysters and wine like my good sense has instructed – then I’m giving you one last chance to add a wine to your list before getting home and playing a good host to your friends.

As I say, heading to France I present the Remy Pannier 2006 Sauvignon Blanc, which packs modest fruit aromas of fresh pear, perhaps even a slight flintyness. On the palate one is braced by a rigid minerality alongside what I can only describe as snap-peas. This is the perfect wine to finish you Sauvignon Blanc flight with as it will recenter your palate, and provide perspective on the range of possibility in this god given grape varietal.

Mulderbosch Sauvignon Blanc Stellenbosch, 2006

Ruarri — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:00:06 +0000

Mulderbosch Sauvignon Blanc is a wine that causes my eyes to light up when I see it in an American bottle store. No jokes. There are only a few other SB’s that get the same reaction from me – Steenberg, Douglas Green, Kanu, Boschendal, Jardin and Durbanville Hills being the main contenders. There are a lot of wines that America does well, but Sauvignon Blanc is not on that list. In my book, South Africa provides the best value for money in Sauvignon Blanc, period. Monkey Bay, Oyster Bay, Spy Valley and the lot all do a good job – but they don’t provide the elegance, restraint and crisp profile that South Africa offers up.At risk of being labeled repetitive I purchase Mulberbosch about 5 times a year – usually on the way to a barbecue when I want to be patriotic and impressive simultaneously. I love it’s country-fresh grass aroma: clean, faint and alluring. On entry the wine is incredibly balanced, cleansing the palate with bright citrus zest and ending on a distinctive green apple finish. With a slightly elevated alcohol the Mulderbosch makes your mouth water on entry – leaving the parched mouth coated, refreshed and quenched.
This wine provides perfection for the price and I never pass up the opportunity to add another bottle to my fridge. I would say collection (but for a collection I believe you’d have to buy it with the intention of putting it aside.)

Koura Bay Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand

Ruarri — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:20:56 +0000

This Koura Bay wine is a perfect example of the pungent cat-pee-phenomenon in New World Sauvignon Blanc. I used to think that the description of that profile would turn people off – but oddly, people seem to get addicted to it, which just goes to show how fetishist wine lovers can be.

Marybank Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand

Ruarri — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:21:58 +0000

Sauvignon Blanc and New Zealand are pretty much synonymous and interchangeable. Insofar as New World goes, New Zealand is Sauvignon Blanc. And soon enough I will tell you how $15 Spanish SB knocks the socks off Sancerre, but allow me to sing the praises of New Zealand, and especially Mary Bank a little more. It’s colour has a pale-straw hue, following through to a cut-lawn cum grapefruit profile with a hint of kiwi fruit. On the entry there’s that signature SB Zing which just electrifies the mouth, and the wine keep delivering new layers of fruit as it warms up and opens out.

Wine Ferraris

Ruarri — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:14:22 +0000

I once heard a winemaker say ‘you can’t make a Ferrari out of materials only fit for a Ford.’ (though similiar has been tried) Fordist mentality relies on abundance of resources, production lines and rapid turnout, and in many cases, especially in floundering economies, fordism can squeeze out the craftsman, who takes greater care with less material to provide a superior product.

It is little wonder then, that New Zealand, with its renowned natural magnificence and limited space that by nature rules out the very possibility of mass-production is the home to many ‘wine Ferraris’ if I may call them that. However, unlike Ferrari or many other limited goods, everyone can afford New Zealand wine. New Zealand Wine Distribution Company is a true testament to the harmony of the country, in that it is a consortium of winemakers who band together to export their small parcels of wine in a single consolidated container. Through them I’ve had the diversity of being exposed to a side of New Zealand that I hadn’t really found through conventional methods. I’d just thought of New Zealand as cat’s pee, pink grapefruit and limited production Pinot Noir that’s hard to come by.

But would you believe that some of the finest GewÃ¼rz, Riesling and Pinot Gris I’ve sampled this season have all come for New Zealand?

What New Zealand does to Sauvignon Blanc is geo-gastronomic (if I can coin a phrase) proof of terroir, and the proof is on the palate.

Of course, it would be cruel to wax too lyrically about NZWC because they’re not in the US yet. In effect these wines are too limited in production, and at current the cost of coming to market in the USA is just not feasible for many other such producers. And unfortunately, until there’s a better way for these wineries to market and sell their wine more effectively, the US oenophile who can’t afford to travel will never get to experience them.

So I won’t talk too much about itâ€¦ for now, you can just go down to Kroger and Publix and buy the same wine that some stressed out smokes-a-pack-a-day jaded corporate buyer has selected for you and every other Joe in the country to taste. But don’t worry, it won’t be for too much longer.

Springfield Life from Stone, Sauvignon Blanc

Ruarri — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:58:23 +0000

As the weather gets hotter, so does the prospect of Sauvignon Blanc. Smoking hot – and on that note, Springfield ‘Life from Stone’ has a unique flavour profile often referred to as ‘gun smoke’ connoting the flinty minerality imparted onto the wine by the lime-stone hills of Robertson, which do so well to keep the race-horses in galloping condition, and gives this Sauvignon Blanc its bang. The colour is slightly green and the wine, like its explosive nose, shoots flavours of granadilla and red pepper onto the palate. In winter, Springfield’s ‘Whole Berry Cabernet’ is a wine I revisit with relish from year to year; and being a producer for all seasons, Life from Stone Sauvignon Blanc is just the same. This is wine for hot summer days and relaxed company.

We often learn more from the bad than the good

Ruarri — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 07:01:54 +0000

If you’re a wine consumer, you’ll no doubt have been questioned about the differences between good and bad wine. Many a time I’ve found myself opposite a person sucking on a Marlboro between slugs from a crystal flute of champagne, and without fail they mention that they can’t tell the difference between one wine and the next and that they’re sure the whole thing is a hoax. Almost always, one finds these guys spouting such nonsense whilst eyeing out the waitress as if trying to bring the canapÃ©s in their direction by telekinesis and at the same time grumbling out loud that they wished there was some hard tack at hand. To such a person, one would have to agree,

if you’re trying to get drunk and sleep with cocktail waitresses, then there really is no difference between the wines you choose. Wine’s alcohol volumes vary at a maximum of 3%, and if you’re out to get drunk you should just hit the cheap stuff. Don’t even worry about getting a bottle, some places do bag in the box without the box, and what it may lack in style, it sure makes up for in price.

However, cheap wine is not just for students and desperate men looking to gain some confidence to proposition the waitress, I would put forward that there’s a lot to be learned from the real el’cheapo stuff. In fact, in many ways one can learn more from cheap wines than from expensive stuff.

My wife and I like to go to wine bars and experience whatever flights they have, we then rank the wines in the order we like them, from best to least. I find it so difficult at times, because I generally like all wines equally, so long as they have an interesting flavour note, and then when one revisits the wine, it it often the case that it has completely changed since your first impression. For this reason, it is incredibly difficult and may take years of experience to be able to distinguish between single varietal wines from the same region at the same price point.

Do an experiment for yourself though, purchase an inexpensive bag in the box white blend; and then source a reasonably priced Chenin Blanc or Sauvignon Blanc. If you do a vertical tasting between the two, you’re likely to learn more about the more premium wine when you sample it next to the bag in the box. I’ve found that this is the best way to display to people that words like ‘complexity’ or ‘layers’ or ‘evolving bouquet’ are not just a bunch of elusive sommelier jargon. You will see that the more premium wine will begin to display different layers, and may completely evolve as it warms up by just a single degree in temperature. Bag in the box, however, is likely to be fairly one dimensional and keep the same characteristic throughout, and is likely to have some chemical added to it that would make it taste consistent from bag to bag, and from year to year. Consider that Yellowtail is able to make 1 million bottles of Cabernet taste almost exactly the same year in and year out, I should think this a little strange, having personally tasted individual barrel samples at more boutiquey wineries where the same Cab tasted different from vineyard block to vineyard block.

The greatest value of a ‘two-buck-chuck’ is it makes us appreciate just how much value we’re really gaining by just spending $10 more and that wine is one product you should never cut corners on.

Douglas Green 2004 Sauvignon Blanc

Ruarri — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 04:20:41 +0000

I love Sauvignon Blancâ€¦ I just have an insatiable appetite for it, because whilst Merlot can be a bit of a vineyard slut, Sauvignon Blanc shows a different face wherever she grows. Coming to the United States I was very interested to pick up the pink grape fruit notes in the Marlborough region. I love the fruit in new world wines, but I soon found that too much fruit can amount to one-dimensionality and soon saturates the palate, and if one is drinking their Sauvignon with Salmon, that pink grape-fruit and Cat’s pee may be a little tainting to the pure flavour of the fish. Insofar as Pouilly Fume is concerned, I’m a little squeamish about white wine that costs over $15.00, purely becausethere is so much stuff that’s better or comparable wine from Spain, Chile, Argentina and South Africa for under $15.00 that it makes no sense to me to spend more. I also find Pouilly Fume to be a little too austere and minerally. Thus I come to South Africa, whose style is often summed up as being ‘old world style with new world flair.’ This may sound like a bunch a marketing trite, but I think that statement is spot-onâ€¦ because South Africa subscribes to old world wine making traditions and most of the wines are backed up by fine terroir by planting the right varietal in the right soil in its best position – and good vineyard management and high temperatures give is that lush, berry bursting, sunshine-in-a-glass New World component. Douglas Green 2004 Sauvignon Blanc is a perfect example of this style I have described, for an older SB it has none of those tinned, pea aromas but instead carries a surprising dose of fresh-cut pineapple with figs and minerals on the noseâ€¦ following through with a nice electricity on the palate with a clean, zesty and crisp finish. This is a perfect Lobster wine as its fresh on the nose, clean on the palate and has a good dose of acidity to break through the all that garlic butter.

Grape Thinking » Sauvignon Blanc

Southern Right 2007 Sauvignon Blanc

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