Sauvignon Blanc

An important white grape in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley that has now found fame in New Zealand and Chile. It is the epitome of the green, tangy style: an unrestrained wine with aromas and flavours of grass, nettles, gooseberries and asparagus. The grape has high natural acidity, leading to crisp, refreshing wines, and are usually designed to be drunk straight away, rather than keeping.

The grape is extremely sensitive to its environment; when it is grown in a moderately cool region such as New Zealand or the Loire Valley, it can range from austere, lean and tart right up to the other end of the scale - rich, powerful and complex. Its inherent flavours are accentuated in warmer regions such as California, and will show a lemony citrus or grapefruit quality, with melon-like fruit, and often an herbaceous grassy component.

• New Zealand, particularly in the Marlborough region, produces what has become the classic style, with pungent gooseberries and nettles. Sauvignon Blanc is now New Zealand's trademark grape.
• Loire Valley wines are less lean and green than New Zealand versions but are often more complex. Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé are the main wines - bone dry, highly aromatic, racy wines, with grassy and sometimes smoky, gunflint-like nuances.
• Bordeaux also views Sauvignon as an important grape, where it is blended with Sémillon to produce fresh, dry, crisp AC Bordeaux Blancs, as well as more prestigious Cru Classé White Graves. It is also blended with Sémillon, though in lower proportions, to produce the great sweet wines of Sauternes.
• Chile delivers lean, fairly punchy flavours, producing wines that are almost halfway between the Loire and New Zealand in terms of fruit character.
• Californian versions are sometimes aged in new oak, which gives a different sort of flavour - more tropical fruit salad.
• South African producers are now producing very good quality, rounded fruit-driven Sauvignon Blancs.

An alternative vinification style of Sauvignon Blanc yields a richer wine. In the 1960s, Robert Mondavi in California created a style called Fume Blanc. Styled after the legendary Pouilly Fumé of the Loire region in France, Fumé Blanc has a richer, fuller style.