Sauvignon Monday

SA winemakers are clearly going to have to do it for themselves. UK supermarket pressure told them to embrace Fairtrade and now they don’t list Fairtrade wines. The harpies in the UK wine media advising consumers to buy non-Fairtrade and donate to Oxfam which will not help Piet Malgas and other SA farmworkers in the slightest. But will keep UK consumers morally warm at least as Nature turns up the freezing.

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Same story with Sauvignon Blanc with zero representation on the new international steering committee for the cultivar. Heck at ProWein next month, we’re all judged so useless by WOSA, they’ve had to hire UK pay-per-view pundits to explicate SA wine. Well at the Pendock Wine Gallery we beg to differ and in a hour will start assessing 100 Sauvignon Blancs blind. The judges (above) are raring to go.

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You can come and taste them this afternoon from 5-7pm at the Taj Hotel along with chefs, retailers and other wine lovers. It should be worthwhile for as Sharon Nagel, one of the new international Sauvignon gurus you’ve never heard of notes:

Its versatility and adaptability, its discovered parentage of the king of red varieties Cabernet-Sauvignon in the late 1990s and, undeniably, its amazing success story in New Zealand have combined to underpin Sauvignon blanc’s worldwide popularity. Detractors may point to its weaknesses – its excessive leafiness when cropped too heavily for instance, or the consumer boredom that characterises many international grape varieties – but the continued surge in global sales is a clear indicator that its qualities far outweigh its shortcomings.

Its versatility and adaptability, its discovered parentage of the king of red varieties Cabernet-Sauvignon in the late 1990s and, undeniably, its amazing success story in New Zealand have combined to underpin Sauvignon blanc’s worldwide popularity. Detractors may point to its weaknesses – its excessive leafiness when cropped too heavily for instance, or the consumer boredom that characterises many international grape varieties – but the continued surge in global sales is a clear indicator that its qualities far outweigh its shortcomings.

Sauvignon blanc continues to provoke strong reactions, both positive and negative, but constant quality improvements and research have broadened the range of flavours, prompting wine writers like Jancis Robinson to claim they are “more excited about the range of wines being made around the world from Sauvignon blanc grapes” than ever before. The initial benchmark in terms of style was France, the variety’s country of origin, even though its precise origin is not known, as is often the case with ancient varieties. First mentioned in the late 16 century, it may have descended from the Savagnin variety common in Jura. At some point in the 18th century, it paired with Cabernet Franc in a field crossing to produce Cabernet Sauvignon, a discovery that enhanced its reputation as a quality cultivar.