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Here are the ingredients for a great Sauvignon Blanc: perfect climate, influence from a talented vintner, correct technical winemaking process, and superior terroir. Simple, right?

The perfect climate includes warm days, cool nights, humidity, and a long vegetative cycle. Warm days are needed to get the grapes to ripen. Cool nights assure that the fruit notes of the grape make it into the glass: without this cooling period, the aroma particles of the grape become, in the words of winemaker Eduard Tscheppe, “kind of fried”. Humidity is important if you want to retain the natural acidity in the grape: think fresh, zippy wine versus old, floppy sock. And then a long vegetative cycle is needed to get the grape to ripen physiologically. This is crucial because if the cycle is sped up for any reason, what you have is an immature grape that is high in sugar while still not yet mature. When this happens, the winemaker must harvest these immature grapes to avoid excessive alcohol, but the grape still hasn’t come along enough to show it’s best aromas. The result is a wine of lesser quality.

When you take these simple four ingredients into account, you can begin to understand the different styles of Sauvignon Blancs being produced in France, New Zealand, Austria and California, provided you know a little about the climate of each region.

I asked Eduard Tscheppe to describe Sauvignon Blancs of the major Sauvignon regions briefly. Here is what he had to say:

New Zealand: Very light. Nose: Notes of fruit, fruit and then some more fruit, with a big dash of blackcurrant bud. Palate: Lots of fine acidity, but less structure or depth.

Austria: Light. Nose: Very fruit-forward, particularly it in a good year. Palate: Acidity, but not the sharp sort; more of a playful raciness. Good structure and depth.

France: Fuller. Nose: Full on terroir, with lots of minerality, hay and grass notes but little fruit. Palate: Less acidity. Structure and depth.

California: Full. Nose: Some fruit and hints of the traditional blackcurrant bud note. Palate: Wide with little acidity.

Of course there’s more to it than that. While the vintners fundamentally react to climatic requirements, their individual personalities play a big part in the wines they create. The greater wine region then develops a style of winemaking as the different vintners influence each other with their personal tastes. This influence is further impacted by the taste of consumers, which in turn is a product of culture and zeitgeist. In this way, the vintner is like an artist of any place and era. Consider the Impressionists: it’s about light and landscape, but also about time and place and the work of those around you.

As much as each of these artists and winemakers is an individualist, however, you can still always find that unifying characteristic which is defined by their geographical boundaries. Those Impressionists were not painting hot tropical scenes, after all. These are the four ingredients we began with, and that is what determines the overriding style of a region.

After climatic and personal influence, the winemaking process itself plays a major role in how the final Sauvignon Blanc wine will present itself. Naturally, this process also follows trends within a region.

Perhaps you have tried some Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand. Cloudy Bay is often referenced as a New Zealand benchmark for great Sauvignon Blanc. This is a wine that Stefan Tscheppe described as being “full throttle”: it gives you the full fruit bouquet possible from the grape. This is achieved through a process called ultra-reductive vinification: the must’s exposure to oxygen is kept to an absolute minimum throughout fermentation, thus allowing the juice to retain as much of the primary fruit flavors of the grape as possible. The resulting wine shows off its bouquet like a proud peacock. However, it does this at the expense of long cellar potential: these wines are built to be consumed in their youth.

In the Styrian region of Austria, there is a classification for wines called Classic (or “Klassik”). This stands for wines that have been fermented in steel tanks only, also using reductive (though not ultra-reductive) vinification, with a resulting wine that shows a healthy amount of acidity and lots of fruit. These Classic wines are a little lower in alcohol content than later bottlings of the same varietals, with generally around 12%, and are also meant to be drunk young. Erwin Sabathi’s Sauvingon Blanc Classic 2004 and Daniel Jaunegg’s Sauvignon Blanc Classic 2004 are both great examples of this style of winemaking. But more about the 2004 vintage later.

Through a more oxidative vinification process and the use of oak barrels of varying size, Sauvignon Blancs can be produced which show off greater structure and depth. Depending on the specific vineyard and how rigorous a selection during harvest, wines with deep structure and great aging potential can be made. Many of the single vineyard Sauvignon Blancs from Austria follow this process, as well as the great Sancerre Sauvignon Blancs from France.

Finally, after climate, personality and process have played their part, it is the specific vineyard where the grapes come from that also leaves its imprint. This is what is known as the influence of terroir. Soil and micro-climatic circumstances create taste notes in a wine that make them unique and identifiable: one easy example is the influence of Erwin Sabathi’s Poharnig vineyard. The soil here creates a saltiness in the wine that makes it recognizable in any blind tasting. Meanwhile, Erwin Sabathi’s flagship wine from the Pössnitzberg vineyard is less salty, a little restrained in its youth, but a Sauvignon Blanc with the greatest aging potential in the Sabathi line. Again, this is all due to the combined factors of climate, terroir, vinification process, and personal talent. (* For detailed information on the soils composition and influence on the Sabathi wines, please read the footnote below).

Another example from a nearby vineyard, Eduard Tscheppe’s Czamillonberg, tends to show off notes of herbs and spices. This is further enhanced by a small percentage of Semillon that has been planted in this vineyard, which is in fact an influence from the French tradition for Sauvignon Blanc.

2004 - A GREAT VINTAGE FOR STYRIA

Winemaker Eduard Tscheppe calls 2004 a vintage that produced Styrian typicality at its best. Cool nights retained the fruit that Styria is famous for, while a warm summer created wines of beautiful depth. A wet fall posed some challenges to winemakers and only those who had worked diligently all year were able to capitalize on the vintage’s potential.

Erwin Sabathi revealed his tricks for a great result: “A thick skin will get your berries through a wet fall. You had to prepare and move the canopy to the side in June and let the sun get to the grapes. The sun will induce the berry skin to thicken up and that was crucial in 2004, when the fall brought lots of rain.”

Those who removed the canopy too soon sunburned their grapes, and those who didn’t remove it at all had weak grapes and were forced to harvest early as the thin grape skins would break and rot as the rains came down. “We did everything just right,” added Erwin with a sly grin, “and were able to wait though all the rain to harvest just at the right time. 2004 turned out as one of out best vintages.”

2004 SAUVIGNON BLANCS - FRESH OFF THE BOAT

(for a limited time we offer free shipping by the case on select wines)

ERWIN SABATHI:

Sabathi Classic 2004 $14.99
Sabathi Poharnig 2004 $29.99 (Case Ships Free)
Sabathi Pössnitzberg 2004 $34.99 (Case Ships Free)

DANIEL JAUNEGG:

Jaunegg Classic 2004 $14.99

EDUARD TSCHEPPE:

Tscheppe Csamillonberg 2004 $28.99 (Case Ships Free)
Tscheppe Classic 2004 (SOLD OUT in less than a week. The Woodland Hills Wine Company might still have some)

*GEEK STUFF: Sabathi’s two flagship Sauvignons are beautiful examples of a terroir’s influence on a wine’s taste and structure. While the Poharnig mountain, with its sandy soils, imparts a salty taste on the wine and leaves its structure slim and elegant, the Pössnitzberg mountain produces wines with a wider body and even higher concentration. This is due to a soil called Pararinza: 15 to 16 million years ago maritime sediments created the base to this soil. Under the exclusion of oxygen a severe rock, commonly referred to as “Glimmer” formed. When this stone weathers the iron inclusions oxidize resulting in “Felsbraunerde”, a brown heavy soil packed with nutrients. This soil causes sweet, exotic notes in the wine and extends cellar life, probably due to the extra concentration and power it adds to the Pössnitzberg Suavignon Blancs.