I touched briefly on Sauvignon Blanc in a recent column, offering a few of my favourites for you to try. I feel, however, a slightly longer column is called for. If you are going to be drinking it by the stainless steel tank this summer, I thought I would give you a smidgen of context. Another reason is that the FNB Sauvingon Blanc Top 10 was announced last week, and that gives us a measure of topicality which, as you know, I generally lack. Let us start generally and slip and slide down toward the local.
Sauvignon Blanc’s homeland is the Loire and Bordeaux in France. There it is well known for either being part of Bordeaux white blends, joined by semillon and a touch of muscadelle; or from the Loire where it makes flinty, zingy wines whose task of representing the areas they come from – “taste zee soil,” the frenchmen shout – is more important than boisterous fruit. However, it appears that the general quality of Sauvignon Blanc coming out of France in the 70’s and 80’s was dong little to fuel the world’s passions for the grape.
Those passions were ignited when New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc arrived in the 80s, although the vines were planted there in 1973. I use the word passion judiciously. One critic has claimed that one’s first New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is like having sex for the first time. Possibly, but then one must imagine the person has only experienced the hum-drum masturbatory pleasures of rather dull wines before this. And that is exactly the point. The world had had nothing like these pungent wines, exploding with green bell-pepper, gooseberry, passion-fruit and asparagus. It made their toes curl in all the right ways. Although a mere babe in swaddling at the time, the 80’s do seem an appropriate era for this wine to have become vogue – matching the garish fashion and big hair. NZ Sauvignon Blanc was in your face, and the world loved it.
Plantings of the grape spread rapidly; especially in the New World with producers paddling for the Sauvignon Blanc wave. California, Chile, Australia, all have serious plantings of the stuff, but none – and this comes from research rather than having tasted them all – seem to be getting it as right as we saffas are.
I remember growing up with this notion that things were always better “over the seas”. Finding myself amongst winos later in life, there is still a remnant of that idea. There’s almost a measure of disbelief when a South African wine is preferred to a French wine of similar style. It feels as though there is a lack of confidence in our own wines, one that’s only bolstered briefly when a foreign critic gives us a high score. The point – which is quickly becoming a bush around which I am beating – is that South African Sauvignon Blanc is world class. Not only in its quality, but in its style. I doubt it will ever “arrive” in the way NZ versions did; one, because our style has more subtlety, and two, because we are to some extent driving down the path that New Zealand cut out for the variety.
Our Sauvignon Blancs are known to be stylistically situated between France and New Zealand. Which means that we can make wines that have a mineral (flinty, earthy, metallic – non fruit flavours) streak in them, but also produce a spectrum of fruity characters, ranging from the green to the tropical. However, in recent years there have been too many of the slap you round the face with a bunch of tinned asparagus, throw a green-pepper at you, squirt some cats pee in your eye, and then finish with a searing acidity that makes you go “phwaaah,” and uncontrollably shake your head so your cheeks wobble, type of wines.
Some find a certain masochistic pleasure in them, but they surely become tired of it after a while. Even a good spanking becomes unpleasant after too long. It appears South African consumers are starting to feel battered and bruised. Christian Eedes, chair of the tasting panel for the Top 10 competition, wrote in his tasting report that we now have a “a consumer base that shows the first signs of tiring of wines made to be ultra-green and ultra-acidic.” Good news.
As I have only really been drinking the stuff properly for a year or two (what I lack in experience I make up for in inquisitiveness, wit, hats, and an ox-like constitution) I chatted to the sommeliers, writers and functional alcoholics present at the results announcement of Top 10, and all agreed that our Sauvignon Blancs have made massive improvements in the last five years.
We are making nuanced, fresh, clean and balanced Sauvignon Blancs in a variety of styles. The results function underscored these different styles, offering guests as they entered examples of each one: flinty, white fruit, green fruit, tropical, and black-current and elderflower. I can hear some of you mumbling under your breaths, and calling us pretentious knobtards and that we should stick our flinty elderflowers up our arses, and that, in fact, my mother is a hamster and my father smells of elderberries.
I respect that point of view entirely. However, one criticism that is levelled at us knobtards is that all of these airy-faery wines we write sonnets to are expensive. I bear good news on that front. The average age of the top 10 wines was a measly R77, with the cheapest wine coming in at R26,99.
I have to admit my favourite was the most expensive. The David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner 2011 (100% Elim fruit, R165) was incredibly pure and focused. It sang in my mouth, whilst zip-lining from the tip my tongue to the back of my throat. Herbs, citrus, with an almost salty finish.
My bargain of the top 10 was the Overhex Soulo 2011 (part Darling/Swartland and Elgin fruit, R45). I thought this also on the herbaceous citrus side of the spectrum, but understated, elegant, and very very drinkable. This wine is only available from the cellar at the moment, but they are happy to ship the wine to you. I really really liked this relaxed version of Sauvignon Blanc.
There are critics of Sauvignon Blanc – ahem, Swartland producers – accusing it of being boring. But we can happily ignore this notion. South Africa makes fantastic, interesting Sauvignon Blancs at great prices. It’s a great variety to introduce people to wine as it has flavours and tastes that are so easily identifiable. It is a variety we should be proud of in South Africa. So buy a couple this summer, and know you are drinking wines that are as good as anything the rest of the world has to offer.
Here are the rest of the Top Ten, with cellar prices attached. I have given a star next to the ones I preferred. (Remember, this just a list. Not the be all and end all. There are other brilliant Sauvignon Blancs that are not on the list. But this is a good a place as any to start.)
In alphabetical order:
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