More than twenty years after the sauvignon blancs of New Zealand’s largest maker, Montana, first stunned Australian wine drinkers with their arresting intensity and freshness, this white variety from the Loire Valley and Bordeaux has steadily captured a substantial share of Australia’s wine market. Jeremy Stockman, wine buyer for Vintage Cellars, says that its sales are not only eating into those of chardonnay, but the supposedly resurgent riesling as well. According to the latest ACNielsen | ScanTrack Liquor data, retail sales of chardonnay have declined from 44.1% of the table wine market to 41.3% and riesling from 8.7% to 7.5% over the past year. Over the same period, sales of straight varietal sauvignon blanc have increased from 8.3% to 11.9%. Unsurprisingly perhaps, five of the six best sellers by value come from New Zealand. Most people are attracted to sauvignon blanc by its distinctively pungent and herbaceous aromas and its intense, juicy fruit tightly wrapped in citrusy acids. It’s up-front, exuberant and ready to drink. But, as the best expressions of the variety eloquently reveal, there’s a lot more to it than that. At its finest, sauvignon blanc delivers a penetrative expression of gooseberry, passionfruit and lychee-like flavour, crisply acidic and refreshing. It can culminate in a lingering mouth-puckering tartness and occasionally a hint of minerality. It can reveal a sculpted tightness and definition. The best of them make you immediately think of shellfish, goat’s cheese or rocket salad. Most Australian sauvignon blanc is planted in warm to hot climates, but the grape prefers to ripen late in a cool region to produce its sought-after combination of flavour, minerality and acidity. Right now, Australia simply doesn’t have enough vineyards on the right sort of sites to make much world-class sauvignon blanc. Thanks to its more southerly location and abundance of ideal alluvial soil types, New Zealand does. As a rule, Australian sauvignon blancs are broader and more juicy, but less austere and shapely than their Kiwi counterparts, lacking their length of flavour, intensity and definition. Many Australian winemakers correct this deficiency by blending their sauvignon blanc with semillon, a grape that retains more length and acidity in warmer climates. A fortunate spin-off is the additional complexity and character that semillon brings to many of these wines. Comprising 35% of its total plantings, New Zealand’s wine industry is heavily geared towards sauvignon blanc, especially in the Marlborough region at the north of the South Island. Marlborough’s combination of clear sunny days, cold nights, long sunshine hours and cooler climate is ideal for this variety, and its flat, even landscape is perfect for the large-scale viticulture necessary to supply the big brands. But even the Kiwis have slipped a notch. My tastings over the last four years suggest that too many New Zealand sauvignon blancs are diluted through the youth of their vineyards and the likelihood they are being over-cropped to meet demand. Too many are simple, deficient in fruit, and lacking in the racy, tingling cut of acidity that won them so many friends over two decades. A look at Australia’s finest sauvignon blanc must begin in the Adelaide Hills, the only wine area in this country that makes enough top-level sauvignon blanc to be considered a genuine ‘sauvignon blanc region’. As a group, its wines are grassy and generously fruited, with vibrant gooseberry/melon flavours and refreshing, but relatively approachable acids. It’s home to consistently well-made wines from Shaw & Smith, Shadowfax, Tower Estate, Step Rd, O’Leary Walker, Paracombe and Nepenthe, whose light grassy influences add character to the quality of their fruit. Geoff Weaver’s Sauvignon Blanc can be more tropical and intense, Starvedog Lane’s more steely, while the wines of TK and Pike & Joyce are typically more complex and mineral. Margaret River has a pair of highlights in the juicy, gooseberry and lychee-like Leeuwin Estate Art Series release, plus the more herbal, tropical and restrained Killerby Sauvignon Blanc. Coonawarra’s Katnook Estate can also produce a generously flavoured example. But, while South Australia and Western Australia have led the way until now, the future for top end Australian sauvignon blanc is to be found in Victoria and Tasmania. A small vineyard by the name of Cannibal Creek, near Warrigal in Gippsland, releases a tightly focused, austere and chalky wine that bursts with pristine herbal, floral aromas and vibrant gooseberry and citrus fruit. Its bony mouthfeel more resembles a high-level Pouilly-Fum̩ (from the Loire Valley in France, the home of varietal sauvignon blanc) than an Australian wine. The newly released 2005 vintage should flesh out beautifully, retaining its cut and austerity. Another emergent Victorian maker is Chestnut Hill, located near Pakenham on the eastern edge of the Melbourne sprawl. Its Sauvignon Blanc is typically more complex and smoky, with taut acids, a lingering minerality and stony texture. These are the most exciting emergent Australian makers of this variety. From the cooler upper reaches of the Yarra Valley Well comes the sought-after Gembrook Hill Sauvignon Blanc, while the occasionally brilliant The Jim Jim Sauvignon Blanc from Hanging Rock Winery’s home vineyard in the Macedon Ranges again reflects the advantages of a quality site in a cool region. Taltarni’s effort, from the Pyrenees, is fine and textured, with racy acids. Dominique Portet subtly introduces a hint of vanilla oak into his complex and mineral Yarra Valley Sauvignon Blanc, while Sandro Mosele has built a slightly more emphatic oak background behind the honeysuckle-scented and savoury Port Phillip Estate Sauvignon Blanc. Tasmania’s contribution to this assessment might be small and rare, but it’s hardly insignificant. From the Coal River Valley, Domaine A’s Lady A Fum̩ Blanc is a smoky and dusty barrel-fermented affair with a piercingly flavoured palate neatly punctuated by brisk acidity. It’s perhaps our finest sauvignon blanc to receive such a significant and well-handled level of oak. So, if you’re one of the thousands of people who buy sauvignon blanc simply because it’s reliable, fruity, affordable and fun, why not take the next step? It’s early days yet in Australia to be comparing our best sauvignon blancs with the best from New Zealand and France, but now at least we have a critical mass of genuine quality and distinction. And, if the growers of these grapes show the same dedication that the growers of our best rieslings have adopted, who knows how good they could become? Australia’s Best Sauvignon Blancs Cannibal Creek (Gippsland) Chestnut Hill (Mt Burnett) Dominique Portet (Yarra Valley) Gembrook Hill (Yarra Valley) Hanging Rock (Macedon Ranges) Killerby (Margaret River) Shadowfax (Adelaide Hills) Shaw & Smith (Adelaide Hills) Starvedog Lane (Adelaide Hills) Tower Estate (Adelaide Hills)
