Sauvignon Blanc

I've been holding this one back because we're going on another tour. Today, we start on Sauvignon Blanc. The mother, or perhaps the father, of Cabernet Sauvignon, this white grape is known for its food friendliness and racy acidity.

Sauvignon Blanc is thought to have its indigenous home in the Loire Valley of France. And, within the Loire Valley, no place is known more for its Sauvignon Blanc than Sancerre. But, even within France, Sauvignon Blanc is not limited just to Loire. It's also one of the great white grapes, along with Semillon. When paired together in a botrytized version, they make probably the most sought after non-fortified dessert wines in the world.

During this Sauvignon Blanc journey, we'll explore some of the chemistry that gives Sauvignon Blanc its name (the root of Sauvignon is the French word sauvage, meaning savage). This will help us to understand why this grape produces a food wine. We'll also see how differing climates and soil produce different styles of wine.

Perhaps as much as any well-known grape, even pedestrian wine drinkers have a decent idea upon tasting it where a particular Sauvignon Blanc comes from. The chemicals that naturally occur in Sauvignon Blanc are easily affected by the terroir and that leads to very different expressions of the grape. In some parts of the world, these wines spend time on oak while in others, that would be anathema. In Bourdeaux in particular, Sauvignon Blanc normally spends time on lees, the dead yeast cells that fall out during fermentation. In the Loire, it does not. 

During our journey, we'll go to some of those most notable Sauvignon Blanc regions in the world, but we're going to start tomorrow in a place from which you've probably not tasted this grape -- Moldova, the little landlocked country wedged between Romania and Ukraine. 

The trip there will not be easy, so until then, rest up.