Sauvignon Blanc is one of the most immediately recognisable white grapes in the world. Scratch the surface of a glass and you get an immediate, vivid hit of aroma. What that aroma is depends almost entirely on where the grape grew.
In the Loire Valley in France, the original home of the variety, Sauvignon Blanc makes wines with flint, smoke, white currant and a dry, mineral finish. Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume are the benchmarks. These are restrained wines where the fruit takes second place to texture and mineral character.
In Marlborough, New Zealand, the story is completely different. When the first Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc hit export markets in the 1980s, it shocked people who thought they knew the variety. Intense passionfruit, lime, gooseberry, fresh-cut grass. Wines that leapt from the glass. New Zealand made the variety an international bestseller.
The aromas come from a family of compounds called pyrazines and thiols. Pyrazines give the green, herbaceous, capsicum-like character. Thiols give tropical and citrus fruit. The ratio between them shifts depending on ripeness and climate. Cool climates favour pyrazines (more green). Warmer climates favour thiols (more tropical).
Sauvignon Blanc is also the backbone of white Bordeaux, blended with Semillon. These wines gain complexity with age in ways that varietal Sauvignon Blanc rarely achieves. Sauternes uses the same combination, where Botrytis fungus concentrates the sugars into something extraordinary.
The variety is almost always made without oak. The aromatic intensity is the point and oak would smother it.
