Sauvignon Blancs

I love Sauvignon Blanc, but I've never really thought too much about it. It's always seemed a go-to wine, never all that bad and sometimes really good. I guess I've always had an instinctive distrust of white wine's depth, figuring that because it's so light it somehow offers less. I also never knew that there exist so many styles of Sauvignon Blanc, though the more I learn about wine I realize that no matter what grape one begins with, terroir and the process of winemaking itself play large roles in determining the taste and feel of any wine.

Having said that, I should add that Sauvignon Blanc is, more than almost any other major wine grape, the least manipulated and manhandled of varietals. About an hour before the tasting, I read Matt Kramer's column in the current issue of Wine Spectator. Kramer argues that there is less "intervention" in the wine-making process with Sauvignon Blanc than in grapes like Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, and many others. It's true that some special processes are used at times, things like "extended lees contact," in which the dead yeast and other organic detritus are stirred up into the fermenting juice to impart more flavor, or barrelling in oak (and very little of that last one). However, these are somewhat rare, and the reason for this hands-off attitude, Kramer points out, is that the Sauvignon Blanc is fine on its own. The grapes themselves have tons of flavor and character, and getting that straight into the bottle is job one. Sauvignon Blanc needs no gauze on the lens.

Last night, Tracy and I were joined by Jeff, who lives in the neighborhood, for a tasting of four good Sauvignon Blancs. For this tasting, I set out four wine glasses filled with various fruits--honeydew, pineapple, lemon, and apple--and we used them as "taste markers" to help us detect these flavors in the wines themselves. This is a great way to begin noticing flavors, and it's something I think we'll do from now on.

The Wines were, in order of appearance:

2008 Otto's Constant Dream Marlborough New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc ($16)  
2008 Whitehall Lane Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley ($16)
2008 Cade Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley ($32)
2008 Sancerre Clos des Bouffants Domaine Roger Neveu ($28)

Marlborough
New Zealand's Marlborough region is recognized as a producer of powerful, expressive Sauvignon Blancs. To sample the this varietal in its various forms, a Marlborough is required. This wine, which Tracy scored a 21.5 and I scored a 21 (Jeff didn't score his wines), had all the fruity bouquet and floral punch of a typical Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The taste markers worked well: I sniffed the fresh honeydew and then tasted the wine and could immediately pluck out those melon notes. We also tasted grass, citrus, and pineapple, all to be expected of such a wine. Other pleasing things here included the wine's balance: while the fruit jumped right out, it was held in check by the prickly acidity and slight bitterness. Jeff said the wine had "different altitudes" and he could taste the honey and citrus working in some sort of spatial simultaneity. It is a full but light wine, "excitable" (Jeff) with lots of light, zing, and "pith" (Tracy). One of the most impressive qualities of this wine was the Raymond Chandler finish--that is, it says the long goodbye. In fact, the flowers and tropical fruit remained hovering in my sinuses for about as long as it takes that chord at the end of the Beatles's "A Day in the Life" to fully fade.

Whitehall
If you've seen Sideways, you may remember the scene where the the two couples go out to a long dinner with numerous wine pairings (it's the dinner following Miles's infamous anti-Merlot hissy). The first wine they try is a Sauvignon Blanc that has been aged in oak. Miles, who has seen a lot when it comes to wine, swirls his glass and says, eyebrows raised, "interesting." In fact, while it's unique to age Sauvignon Blanc in oak, it's certainly not unheard of. I imagine that Miles's apparent surprise issues from politeness. As I'm sure he knew, some oak-aged Sauvignon Blancs are among the more expensive bottles. Still, this practice is much more rare than the straightforward vine-to-bottle winemaking described above.

The Whitehall, if you haven't guessed, is an oaked Sauvignon Blanc. I should say immediately that the oak is not overpowering. Only 30% of this wine spent time in oak, and for just seven weeks. Still, this light oaking imparts an acerbic tilt to the outright friendliness of the other wines we tasted. Tracy (who rated this wine a 20.5) detected silt, tobacco, and musk, along with a slight vanilla twang. Jeff was also generally positive about this wine, calling it "mellow," "smooth," and "rounded." If the previous wine was a tenor, he said, this was a baritone. Jeff also referred to the Whitehall as "self-effacing," and I think I would agree, though maybe in less positive terms--to me, the wine was a little blank. I used the word "flat" twice in my notes, and as I drank it I pictured in my mind a long plank of wood. (I gave the wine a perhaps too-low 14.) Now, maybe I pictured wooden planks because I had recently read that a cheap way to oak wines is to toss in a few oak boards to a fermenting tank--though I know from reading about this wine that they used real oak barrels. I do think, though, that the flatness and blandness of a plank board is a decent metaphor for this wine. Which is not to say it's all bad. We need sturdy, serviceable planks. This is a solid wine and would go really well with light Italian food, maybe gnocci. A good, smooth, gentle wine, and a twist on the other Sauvignon Blancs of the night.As Miles would say: interesting.

Cade
This was the most expensive bottle of the night. I raise this issue of price at the outset because, while this was a really nice wine, it wasn't noticeably better than the others. (In fact, I think that Jeff said it was his least favorite of the bunch.) I had originally written here that one reason for the high price was that Cade is affiliated with the world-famous wine producer Merry Edwards. I was incorrect about this, as Jill informed me in her comment below. The reason for my error was simple: I was told by the clerk in the wine store that Cade was an offshoot label of Merry Edwards, and I didn't independently verify the claim. I should say that I won't make this mistake again. I realize that it's essential to keep such facts straight. And thank you, Jill, for correcting me.

Still, $32 for a Sauvignon Blanc should clearly reward the buyer.

One of the most noticeable and immediate issues here was that the wine displayed a slight effervescence. The fizz seemed to lessen in intensity after a few minutes, but it never entirely disappeared. That issue aside, Tracy got it right when she said the Cade is a nice combination of the first and second wines, with lots of the flavor notes of the Marlborough alongside the more angular and restrained elements of the Whitehall. We all noticed vanilla and citrus, and I honed in hard on the presence of a pleasing, but definitely assertive, alcohol burn in the back of the throat. This wine is, at 13.8% alcohol, indeed 0.8% higher in alcohol content than the other Sauvignon Blancs--but should that make such a difference? We also noticed how fast the finish was here, especially in comparison to the Marlborough.

Sancerre
France is best known for two regions of Sauvignon Blanc vineyards. One is the Loire valley, home to the towns of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. The other is Bordeaux, more famous for its reds but also a producer of Sauvignon Blancs (though these are most often blends with Semillon and other grapes). The Loire wines, though, are famous for their mineral qualities and prized as some of the more complex of Sauvignon Blancs. Many consider Sauvignon Blancs from the Loire valley among the best in the world.

I was surprised by the fruit-forward nature of this bottle (I rated it a 24, Tracy a 21.5). Perhaps I was hoping for even more minerality, more limestoney bite. It was, to be sure, more restrained than the first wine we tasted, and had a muted, quiet quality. We detected a waft of cork (this was the only corked bottle; the rest were screw-tops), grass, melon, flowers, and mild citrus. In short, this was a fairly recognizable Sauvignon Blanc, enjoyable, delicious, smooth, and balanced. A really nice wine, one that would go fine with food. I should add that out of all these wines, this is the one I'd like to drink most of all. Flavorful, cool, rounded, smart. The best Sauvignon Blanc I've ever had, I think.

I also had an already opened bottle of Sauternes, a sweet Bordeaux wine blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. We were going to taste it, but it had begun to turn. So I dumped the bottle and we had coffee instead.