Savvy local winemakers ensure sauvignon blanc remains cool

I’m not often tempted to write about sauvignon blanc. Perhaps I’ve felt inspired to do so because the liquor lockdown has been lifted. Perhaps after three weeks of solid rain in Gauteng, the idea of sunny skies and sauvignon blanc is a compelling fantasy.

The case for sauvignon blanc is that it is fresh and food-friendly, generally (though not necessarily) undemanding, inexpensive to produce, generally affordably priced and it meets the expectations of most everyday white-wine drinkers.

Exactly those features that make sauvignon appealing can also count against it. Its easy-going freshness means it’s often simple; most executions lack vinosity. Many of the unwooded examples fail to deliver dimension and nuance. While not all of them are brash, very few are engaging. Generally they are like cocktail party conversations: interesting at the time, but rarely life-changing.

But sauvignon blanc is the biggest-selling varietal white wine in SA: the odds are, if you ask friends on your patio “what would you like to drink?” the response will not be chardonnay or Chenin. In a curious way this makes rating the cultivar — especially the most popular examples — more, rather than less, complicated. There are remarkably few bad examples, but the chances of finding an extraordinary bottle are equally low. It’s a Darwinian market — the junk is doomed to extinction (so over time there’s very little about). However, there are many buyers for quite average wines. In sauvignon blanc terms, at least, you’ve got to be pretty ugly to want for a home for the night.

Sauvignon is much more of a “made” wine than its reputation as a heat-sensitive cultivar would suggest. If sauvignon really required a cool climate to perform well, volumes in SA would be seriously finite: exactly how many really cool sites do you think we have — given that Constantia is at latitude 34º south? Marlborough, home to Cloudy Bay (and a significant volume of Kiwi sauvignon), is at 41º. Sancerre and Pouilly Fume in France, the most important of the Old World sauvignon appellations, are at 47º north. If Southern Africa doesn’t stretch closer enough to Antarctica to provide tens of thousands of hectares of supercool vineyards, how is it that we have so many successful wines?

The answer lies partly in the genius of our viticulturists and winemakers. Over the past three or four decades, they have become adept at optimising the potential of the vineyards, and coaxing from the fruit a range of styles and expressions. In Constantia, for example, which is maritime (but not particularly cold, though because of the mountain it has fewer hours of direct daily sunshine than Hemel-en-Aarde or Stellenbosch), most of the wines are made to be grassy, almost herbaceous.

At the tasting I put together for this article, the Buitenverwachting 2017 was simply delicious. Contrary to popular belief — which holds that sauvignon should be consumed as young as possible — this was a wine that had evolved gracefully, offering more charm and nuance than anything else in the lineup. There was certainly a mown hay/fern-leaf note, though the palate was layered and textured.

Something of the fresh, grassy style can be achieved in quite warm regions by early harvesting, though the mouthfeel is often quite aggressive. Springfield’s Abri Bruwer is a master at transforming this potentially grippy and quite two-dimensional flavour profile into something altogether more sumptuous: his Life from Stone cuvée delivers tropical whiffs and passion fruit notes.

Astute use of good oak is another strategy for disguising the fact that some sites are not cold enough for classically styled sauvignon blanc. Estates in Bordeaux’s Pessac-Leognan region now achieve higher prices for their top wines than even the best growers in the traditional appellations of the Loire Valley. Several Cape producers have learnt from their example: Diemersdal, Morgenster, De Grendel, Reyneke and Stark-Conde are among the best known. The barrel introduces an aromatic component, but it is the textural “creaminess” that represents the real value.

• Fridjhon was presented with the Wine Appreciation and Wine Advancement Award at the annual Wine Harvest Commemorative event last week. The event, which took place virtually on February 2, was held to celebrate the wine industry’s inception 362 years ago and to honour key role players in the industry. Fridjhon received the award for his noticeable contributions to the image of wine and its responsible use and his role in building the image of the SA wine industry.