Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon is a French white grape variety that has been cultivated in the Loire Valley and Bordeaux region for centuries. The grape is original to southwestern France, with Bordeaux as the place where it originated. The name is believed to originate from the French word 'sauvage', meaning wild, because its leaves resemble wild grapevine leaves. The variety is often called simply Sauvignon, and some German speakers call it Muskat-Silvaner. Sauvignon Blanc was commercially produced in New Zealand for the first time in the 1970s, and Marlborough's first Sauvignon Blanc vines were planted in 1975. New Zealand burst on the international scene in the 1980s with what one critic calls an extravagantly forceful, fruity style of Sauvignon Blanc.

• Cultivated in the Loire Valley and Bordeaux region for centuries
• Name believed to come from the French 'sauvage' (wild), because its leaves resemble wild grapevine leaves
• Synonyms include Blanc Fumé, Fumé Blanc and Muscat Sylvaner
• Marlborough's first Sauvignon Blanc vines planted in 1975

Sauvignon Blanc's VIVC variety number is 10790, with SAUVIGNON BLANC as its prime name. The variety's country of origin is France. One parent of Sauvignon Blanc is Savagnin, listed under its prime name SAVAGNIN BLANC (VIVC variety number 17636). The second parent is unknown. Sauvignon Blanc is also a parent in its own right: Cabernet Sauvignon has Cabernet Franc as parent 1 and Sauvignon Blanc as parent 2.

• Country of origin: France
• Parent 1: Savagnin (prime name SAVAGNIN BLANC)
• Parent 2: unknown
• Offspring: Cabernet Sauvignon (Cabernet Franc x Sauvignon Blanc)

Sauvignon Blanc can appear in many different guises, from a light-bodied grassy Loire Valley wine to a complex, weighty white Bordeaux. The wines are high in acidity and almost always dry; one study guide calls them medium-bodied, while another source has the variety as typically light-bodied, with fresh, vibrant and distinctive flavours, in oaked and unoaked versions depending on the desired style. Sancerre AOC and Pouilly-Fumé AOC wines are dry with high acidity and lifted 'green' aromatics of grass, asparagus and green apple. Napa Valley Sauvignon Blancs tend to be similar to white Bordeaux: full bodied, ripe and often oaked.

• Acidity: high; almost always dry
• Body: from light-bodied in the Loire to weighty white Bordeaux and full-bodied Napa Valley
• Most producers opt for stainless steel to retain the variety's aromatic, fruity aromas

Sauvignon Blanc thrives in cool to moderate climates: if the climate is too warm, the grapes ripen too quickly and the variety's distinctive herbaceous aromas will not develop, and in moderate climates it needs a site with the cooling influence of altitude or ocean breezes. Plantings reached 123,000 ha in 2015, and it is grown in all major wine-producing countries of the world. In France, the variety's stronghold is the upper Loire, and the twin appellations of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé in particular. Menetou-Salon, Quincy, Reuilly and Touraine are among the Loire's other Sauvignon Blanc areas, and it is also the grape of Burgundy's St-Bris. In Bordeaux it has a strong presence in the Graves, the Entre-deux-Mers and Sauternes, and it is one of the two dominant white grapes of south-west France, often blended with the fatter and complementary Semillon. Elsewhere in Europe it is a speciality of Rueda in Spain, where it often appears with the indigenous Verdejo, Styria in Austria and Collio in north-east Italy. Beyond Europe, coastal Chilean regions such as the Casablanca Valley are cooled by sea breezes and morning fog, and Leyda/San Antonio is another Pacific-cooled region for the variety. Sauvignon Blanc more than doubled in area in Australia in ten years from 2001 to 2010 and rose to be the second largest white winegrape variety after Chardonnay in 2014; it is grown from the warmest 'river' regions to the cool climates of the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania, and thrives in the maritime climate of Margaret River, where it is often found in blends with Semillon. In the United States, Napa Valley winemakers need sites with altitude or cooling sea fogs, and Washington state can make some fine, racy Sauvignon Blanc.

• Loire: Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, Menetou-Salon, Quincy, Reuilly, Touraine
• Bordeaux: Graves, Entre-deux-Mers, Sauternes
• New Zealand: Marlborough, Hawke's Bay
• Chile: Casablanca Valley; Leyda/San Antonio
• Australia: Adelaide Hills, Tasmania, Margaret River
• South Africa: Constantia and Elgin

Sauvignon Blanc was commercially produced in New Zealand for the first time in the 1970s and is now the country's most widely planted variety; Marlborough's first Sauvignon Blanc vines were planted in 1975. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is pungently aromatic, with red capsicum (bell pepper) and gooseberry characters, lush passionfruit and tropical fruit overtones, and other notes of fresh cut grass, tomato stalks, grapefruit or lime. Marlborough is the country's largest Sauvignon Blanc region, with low rainfall, consistently high sunshine hours and large diurnal temperature shifts during the ripening period. It gives more herbaceous and mineral styles from the Awatere Valley and a riper, tropical, more pungent style from the main Wairau Valley. The Awatere Valley, the most geographically distinct sub-region, lies south of the Wairau Valley, stretching inland from the sea and climbing towards the inland Kaikoura ranges; it is cooler, drier and windier, often with a degree of elevation, while the Southern Valleys sub-region (the Omaka, Fairhall, Brancott, Ben Morvan and Waihopai Valleys) has soils that tend to be heavier and contain more clay than Wairau. Hawke's Bay, by contrast, produces a riper, rounder style with lower acidity and rich tropical flavours. The vines seem particularly at home in the dry gravels of Marlborough's Wairau Valley, and one critic names Cloudy Bay as the most famous producer.

• First Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc vines: 1975
• Wairau Valley: riper, tropical, more pungent style
• Awatere Valley: more herbaceous and mineral styles
• Increasing diversity of styles through wild ferments, lees contact and fermentation or ageing in oak

The smell is sharp and piercing, reminding different tasters variously of gooseberries, nettles, crushed blackcurrant leaves and occasionally cat's pee, and with age aromas reminiscent of canned asparagus can develop. The smell of Sauvignon was one of the first to be explained in terms of the dominant flavour compounds, called methoxypyrazines. The variety's success is owed largely to the varietal aromas of thiol compounds (blackcurrant, exotic fruit, boxwood), whose expression varies depending on the terroir, vintage and growing conditions of the grapes. Sunlight and climate shape the fruit. Grapes grown in the shade have nearly double the amount of the aromatic compound behind the variety's green bell pepper flavour compared with those grown in sunlight, and winemakers can mix shaded grapes (for 'green' flavours) with sun-exposed grapes (for tropical flavours). In New Zealand, warmer northern regions give riper and richer styles with melon, nectarine and other stonefruit flavours, while cooler southern regions, with longer growing conditions that promote stronger, more vibrant fruit flavours and higher acidity levels, give more pungent, crisper wines with passionfruit and other tropical fruit flavours, red pepper (capsicum) and gooseberry characters. Citrus, boxwood and fig leaf are the three aromatic markers of Bordeaux's dry whites, and the variety's aromatic palette ranges from floral notes (hawthorn, broom) to white-fleshed fruit and citrus, with a subtle minerality sometimes referred to as a "flinty note" on flinty terroirs such as Pouilly-Fumé or Sancerre.

• Loire: grass, asparagus and green apple
• New Zealand: red capsicum, gooseberry, passionfruit and tropical fruit
• Casablanca Valley, Chile: passion fruit with herbaceous notes of grass
• Bordeaux: citrus, boxwood and fig leaf

Most Sauvignon Blanc is fermented at relatively low temperatures in stainless steel to preserve youthful fruit, and the wines are in general designed to be drunk as young as possible, although some fruit from particularly low-yielding vineyards can be concentrated enough to withstand oak ageing. The winemaker chooses between wild or inoculated yeasts, then storage in inert vessels such as stainless steel, which most producers opt for because it retains the variety's aromatic, fruity aromas, or in oak barrels, which give flavours such as vanilla, cloves and smoke and encourage the development of honey and nutty flavours with age. In New Zealand there is increasing diversity of styles through wild ferments, degrees of lees contact, and fermentation and/or ageing in oak, both old and new. Sauvignon Blanc is not usually blended, as producers want to retain its characteristic taste and aromas, but some winemakers blend it, most commonly with Sémillon, to add some complexity; top Bordeaux producers in Graves AOC or Pessac-Léognan AOC often put a percentage of their wine into oak and blend it with a small amount of Sémillon. California has its own style of full-bodied, slightly sweet Sauvignon, often enriched by oak ageing and typically called Fumé Blanc. Fumé Blanc is widely credited to Robert Mondavi. Sauvignon Blanc can also be used to produce high-quality dessert wines, and the most common blend for a sweet white Sauternes or Barsac is four parts Semillon and one part Sauvignon.

• Most wines fermented at relatively low temperatures in stainless steel and made to be drunk young
• Oak adds vanilla, cloves and smoke, and honey and nutty flavours with age
• Most common blending partner: Sémillon
• Sauternes or Barsac: four parts Semillon to one part Sauvignon as the most common blend

In one critic's assessment, the best upper Loire examples include the Pouilly-Fumé of Domaine Didier Dagueneau and Baron de Ladoucette and Sancerre from Henri Bourgeois, Lucien Crochet and Vincent Pinard, wines that are drier, denser and slower-maturing than most New World Sauvignon Blanc. The same critic's typical examples of highly regarded Sauvignon Blanc also include Cloudy Bay and Dog Point in Marlborough, Les Belles Dames, Henri Bourgeois' D'Antan in Sancerre, Didier Dagueneau's Silex in Pouilly-Fumé, Henri Pellé in Menetou Salon, PHI Lusitania Park in Yarra Valley, Shaw + Smith in Adelaide Hills, Araujo Eisele Vineyard in Napa Valley and Babcock Vineyards in Santa Barbara. For the substantial dry, oak-aged whites of Graves and Pessac-Léognan, Ch Couhins-Lurton is a rare all-Sauvignon example, alongside the all-Sauvignon Pavillon Blanc de Château Margaux.

• Pouilly-Fumé: Domaine Didier Dagueneau, Baron de Ladoucette
• Sancerre: Henri Bourgeois, Lucien Crochet, Vincent Pinard
• Marlborough: Cloudy Bay, Dog Point
• Bordeaux: Ch Couhins-Lurton, Pavillon Blanc de Château Margaux

In one critic's view South Africa makes some delicious Sauvignon Blanc, and in the cooler coastal Overberg region the wines can offer an attractively smoky halfway house between New Zealand and the Loire. On South Africa's Western Cape, the cooling influences of Constantia and Elgin give them a reputation for Bordeaux or New Zealand-esque Sauvignon Blancs: those following the New Zealand format tend to be lighter in body and less intense or complex, while the Bordeaux-style wines have more intense, herbaceous characters.

Sauvignon Blanc is a very vigorous variety that needs to be planted on extremely poor soil to restrict vegetal growth and allow grapes to fully ripen; growers can also control vigour through rootstock selection or training systems that stress the vines, and heavy pruning allows better air circulation, which is good for preventing disease, and increases exposure to sunlight. It has an average budburst period and early flowering, and is a highly vigorous variety with low fertility and small clusters that are prone to coulure. It is extremely susceptible to powdery mildew and black rot, and to a lesser extent downy mildew and botrytis; it is also susceptible to grapevine trunk diseases, and it yields between 5 and 10 t/ha. It has small clusters and thick-skinned berries and is sensitive to noble rot. A fragile and demanding grape variety, it adapts to the temperate and semi-continental climates of the Loire, with soils of chalk, limestone and flinty clay.

• Very vigorous; needs extremely poor soil
• Extremely susceptible to powdery mildew and black rot
• Yields between 5 and 10 t/ha

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