Imagine you only just decided that you were going to take up wine and the first glass of white you ever tasted was one of several vintages of sauvignon blanc by Montana, Morton Estate, Cooks, Longridge or several other New Zealand wineries from the mid to late ’80s. What on earth, you would surely think, do they make this stuff from? Sure there are flavours of gooseberries and perhaps the odd whiff of passionfruit, but for heavens sake, how did they let that cat near the bottling line? It’s commonly accepted that sauvignon blanc has two sets of varietal flavours, one fruit-based, the other more vegetative. Amongst the fruit characters are passionfruit, gooseberries, blackcurrants and lychees. The vegetative possibilities range from lightly grassy, through more pungent, then to asparagus, and in the extreme, a pungent, heady and socially questionable aroma, more than slightly suggestive of tom cat pee. For several years until the turn of the ’90s, it seemed that the more vegetative and pongy the wine, the greater the excitement it generated. These days it’s absolutely no secret that the cause behind these pungent, grassy or herbaceous aspects of sauvignon blanc are a group of complex organic compounds, known as methoxy pyrazines. These substances are especially potent and most of us can detect them at incredibly low incidences of around three parts per trillion. Around the 10 parts per trillion mark they create that strong asparagus odour, while above that, the scent errs towards the catty direction. With viticultural hindsight we also know that the incidence of methoxy pyrazines reduces as the ripening season becomes warmer and as foliage is kept to minimal levels throughout the ripening process. Since New Zealand’s main wine regions, especially Marlborough, are very cool indeed, all the top sauvignon blanc vineyards there now regularly monitor and reduce the foliage around the developing bunches of grapes. Most are regularly trimmed and plucked to minimise shading and foliage, which dramatically reduces the methyl pyrazine influence. The best modern New Zealand sauvignon blancs are quite stunning indeed, with only a modest and unobtrusive herbaceousness which can set off beautifully the brilliantly ripe fruit flavours their vineyards are capable of achieving. I strongly recommend the sauvignon blancs of Hunters, Cloudy Bay, Te Mata Estate, Vidals, Babich and Cooper’s Creek. Since most Australian sauvignon blanc vineyards are warmer, our wines have never had the problem to the same degree, although excessive canopies in our cooler areas like the Yarra Valley, the Mornington Peninsula, the Lower Great Southern (WA), the Adelaide Hills and Tasmania, will lead to overly herbaceous wines. With sauvignon blanc, vineyard management is everything. It’s true that Australian sauvignon blanc has never captured the imagination in quite the same way as that from New Zealand. Rothbury Estate, Andrew Garrett and Wolf Blass have each developed their own sauvignon blanc plantings at Marlborough, while other Australian brands have experimented with trans-Tasman blends. My view, however, is that Australian sauvignon blanc is about to take its turn. Like the New Zealanders, we make three main variants on the sauvignon blanc theme. These can be summarised as (i) straight unwooded varietal, (ii) oaky fume style, perhaps with semillon, and (iii) the dry, low-oak, Graves-like blend. Most of the “name brands” of sauvignon blanc fall into the former category. Wines like Katnook Estate, Shaw and Smith, Shottesbrooke, Leeuwin Estate, Yarra Ridge, Water Wheel, Mount Hurtle, Wirra Wirra and Bridgewater Mill. In reality these represent a simple conversion of intense, ripe fruit flavour and fresh acids of fruit into wine. They share utterly mouthfilling and vibrant flavours, and finish with a cleansing and slightly tart acidity. Their quality is influenced by the ripeness and flavour of the fruit before picking, the coolness of the fermentation (which retains the grape’s unique flavours) and the quickness with which these wines are ultimately put into bottle. There’s not a lot of scope for winemaking originality and flair, for most of the work is done in the vineyard. The best examples largely come from the better vineyards in cooler regions, where the grapes are able to ripen later and accumulate more flavour. The second type of sauvignon blanc is a broader group, typified by the Fume Blancs of Taltarni, Penfolds and Rosemount (although this wine now has less oak than in previous years) and the brilliant sauvignon blanc of Cullens. These are chunkier, richer wines with more roundness, softness and grip, achieved by fermenting portions of the wine with grape solids and/or in contact with oak (which does indeed mean oak shavings on occasions) and by maturing them for a decent spell in small casks after fermentation. To balance their extra richness and texture, these wines are more laid-back in their fruit, typically less herbaceous, and show softer acids than the non-wooded styles. Consequently they are made more as wines to be used around a meal, rather than the ritzy, often dominating nature of the first group, some of which are so overpowering that a satisfactory match with food would baffle even the most experienced dating service. While Australian winemakers are presently making truly outstanding examples of each of the preceding types, it is with my final group that the new great sauvignon blanc-based wines of the future will be made. These are the blends with semillon, which are usually given a lighter oak treatment than the more forward fume style. Semillon contributes vastly to their overall complexity, while tightly-knit oak, more restrained fruit and fresh acidity ensure that while attractive and vivacious when young, these wines will generally improve in the bottle for around five to eight years. Fine examples of this style are made by Tim Knappstein (labelled as Fume Blanc), Wirra Wirra, Cape Clairault and Pierro. Expect the arrival of many more, for it is that exists the ultimate winemaking challenge with this most exasperating of all white grapes.
