So much Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tastes as if it’s come out of the same bottomless tank, that it’s a pleasure to come across something that restores your faith in the quality of New Zealand’s most popular wine style. Made by Master of Wine Liam Stevenson, this was picked early (by hand, not machine) and fermented with lots of solids in old French oak barrels. Dry, savoury and complex, it has appealing notes of gunflint and elderflower with subtle oak and a hint of passion fruit. Very smart.
White Varietal: Sauvignon Blanc
2019 Susana Balbo Signature White Blend, Uco Valley, Mendoza
( £17.99, 13% )This pioneering white blend of Semillón with 35% Sauvignon Blanc and 25% Torrontés from the brilliant Susana Balbo and her team has rapidly established itself as one of the best in Latin America. Barrel fermented in 60% new wood, it’s leesy, toasty and very fresh, with a lovely combination of beeswax, pink grapefruit and struck match flavours, a dusting of sweet spices and engaging elegance. Contact Las Bodegas for local stockists.
White wine rising
by Christy Canterbury MW
Though the “ABC”, or “Anything But Chardonnay” campaign continues to rail against it, Chardonnay remains the favourite white grape of USA wine drinkers. It is also the planet’s most planted,...
2017 Dog Point Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough
( £14.50, 12.5% )Classic modern, dry Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from two of the masters of the region, James Healy and Ivan Sutherland, showing notes of lemon grass, passion fruit and fresh sweat (more appealing than it sounds, honest). Nettley, zingy acidity, plenty of focus and a long, refreshing finish. My kind of Kiwi white.
2015 Dog Point Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Section 94, Marlborough
( £17-22, 13.5% )A wine that’s consistently a match for all but the very best (and much more expensive) wines of Pessac-Léognan, this deftly oaked Marlborough Sauvignon ages brilliantly too. Leesy, rich yet beautifully balanced, it combines flavours of vanilla spice, gooseberry fool, lanolin and vivid acidity. One of the region’s very best expressions of the grape.
Does somewhereness matter in wine?
by Tim Atkin
I’ve never been to the Phantom River in New Zealand’s South Island, but a quick search on line shows that it rises in the Ben McLeod Range and joins the...
The Lismore Sauvignon Blanc Tasting
by Tim Atkin
The fourth annual Lismore tasting, pitching South Africa against the rest of the world, focused on wooded Sauvignon Blanc and white Bordeaux blends. In previous editions we have looked at...
New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc: too much of a good thing?
by Tim Atkin
In the recent history of wine, it’s hard to think of a bigger success story than New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. People famously complain that the fastest way to earn a...
2016 Dog Point Vineyard, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough
( £13.50, 13%, The Wine Society )There’s always something of a rush to list and sell the new vintage of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, so it’s good to see a winery (and a retailer in the shape of the Wine Society) that takes a more relaxed approach to vintages, selling wines with a bit of bottle age. Tangy, savoury and dry, this is a complex, flinty, well balanced white with no oak, allowing the quince, greengage and gooseberry fruit to shine.
2016 Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough
( £14.99, 13, New Zealand House of Wine, The New Zealand Cellar )Kevin Judd is arguably the most famous exponent of Sauvignon Blanc on the planet, thanks to his work at Cloudy Bay and subsequently at his own Marlborough winery, Greywacke. He certainly knows how to invest the variety with considerable complexity, using wild yeasts to add extra nuances to the exotic lime, gooseberry and stone fruit flavours. Long and very satisfying.
2015 Château de la Parenchère, Bordeaux
( £11.30, 13.5%, Peter Osbourne Fine Wines )Made for the first time in 2006, this was grafted over from Cabernet Franc vines to produce a blend of Sauvignon Blanc with 20% Semillon and 15% Muscadelle. Proving that you don’t need a swanky address in Pessac-Léognan to make tasty Bordeaux Blanc, it’s tangy, aromatic and sappy with hints of struck match and grapefruit and a waxy, herbal undertone from the Semillon.
2012 Clos Floridene, Graves, Bordeaux
( £17.99, 13%, The Co-operative )Denis Dubordieu deserves his reputation as one of the best white winemakers in Bordeaux. Clos Floridène is a case in point, a textbook blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and a dash of Muscadelle that benefits from 25% barrel fermentation. Tangy, fresh and grapefruity, this has subtle oak, good texture and minerally flourish.