sauvignon

INSIDERS’ VALUE NAPA SAUVIGNON BLANC

The wine business has many stories, but it is the juice that makes the story relevant. Picayune is a label that was founded in 2011 by Claire Ducrocq Weinkauf, a French native that grew up in Auvergne, and the wine is produced as part of the program of a small wine shop/mercantile in Calistoga. That in and of itself isn’t particularly grabbing. There are lots of small, seemingly cottage projects in places like Napa. But when we tasted the wine, clearly there had to be more to the story.

There was a certain presence to this Sauvignon that indicated someone was behind this that was more than just some elevated hobbyist. The Sauvignon Blanc was a proper Napa Sauv with bright pear, melon with a supportive underpinning of citrus, a thread of minerality, and bright acidity. The flavors, while not overbearing, are beautifully proportioned, pure, and subtly honed. Clearly there was more to this well-priced little Sauv Blanc than met the eye.

Digging deeper, we found that Claire was a trained winemaker who studied in France and ended up working at Paul Hobbs Cobos operation in Argentina, eventually coming to California. Picayune is a self described negociant operation with Claire selecting various lots that appealed to her and putting together wines based on what she found. This one, as the label states, is 94% Napa with a 6% dollop of Sonoma fruit. It’s 100% Sauvignon Blanc that is done in 70% stainless steel and 30% neutral barrels. She apparently has a consulting business as well involving some fairly impressive clients.

Fresh and vibrant at every turn, the Picayune Sauvignon Blanc 94% Napa County/6% Sonoma County 2020 isn’t stylistically flamboyant but it’s an elevated example of exactly what a quality Sauvignon from around there should taste like. You could easily drink the whole bottle without necessarily paying attention to the craftsmanship and precision, but it’s there. The price is definitely another plus, particularly for something that says Napa on it. But we suspect given the ‘casual’ presentation of the business overall that attractive pricing is part of the formula.

The Picayune Sauvignon Blanc 94% Napa County/6% Sonoma County 2020 is a delightful, unpretentious, sneaky find that fills a need and that was our motivation in bringing it in. You don’t find wines in this price range this well executed all that often. At the end of Claire’s profile, it made the point that Claire lived in Calistoga with her two children and her husband Aron Weinkauf, who is apparently the winemaker at Spottswoode. Like we said, there was more to this label than we knew going in. Stuff like this rarely makes it out of Napa. Delightful Sauvignon, sneaky value.

DASHWOOD SAUV. BLANC RIDES AGAIN: WS 90, $10.98

There are wines for all reasons. But that is perhaps one of the hardest things to manage. There are a lot of wines out there that are designed to merely function at a ‘price point’. There’s a not a lot of style or dimension. We aren’t really interested in those. But we are perfectly aware that people don’t necessarily all drink ‘top of the category’ stuff every single day. There is a great need for dependable ‘go-to’ wines for most of the days of the week. The problem is, in these days of ‘sensationalist media’, people don’t necessarily react to things that aren’t referred to as ‘best ever’.

Still, we like to keep everything in perspective. We aren’t going to tell you that this Dashwood Sauvignon Blanc 2019 is the ‘greatest ever’. But we are going to tell you that this is one of the great, dependable, ‘staple’ Sauvignons on the market… sometimes. We have had great runs with Dashwood over the years. They don’t make the ‘cut’ every year, but when they hit it they are one of the best values around. This is one of those times.

The 2019 Dashwood Sauvignon Blanc checks all the boxes for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. You’ve got bright flavors and zing, but also some richness and texture that a lot of examples lack. There’s a citrus backbeat here but also tropical and stone fruit tones that make the first impression. There is a great variation in the personalities of Kiwi Sauvignons on the market, but this one has broad appeal in that it is pretty easy going and doesn’t touch any of the flavor extremes that the genre can have. A lot of credit perhaps belongs to the 2019 vintage, which one of the other Kiwi pieces we researched called a special vintage. But the juice is ample and friendly in a category where some examples can make your eyes water.

It isn’t just us either. Even the ‘tough guy’ Wine Spectator gave this one a 90 point score, no small thing for a low priced Sauvignon Blanc, with comments “Aromatic and distinctive, with a thread of honeysuckle and litsea oil mingling with Meyer lemon, peach and apricot flavors that are generous and intense through the finish, showing a touch of savory sea salt. Drink now.” At $10.98, it will fit into most budgets nicely.

CLASSY, AGED ITALIAN SAUVIGNON

We’ve never been afraid to swim outside the mainstream. We just realize when we do, the wines have to be a little more than just a cut above. This is actually our first go-round with Vigne del Malina Sauvignon but we have had their wines before. Aged Sauvignon Blanc is an oddity in most parts of the world, but in northeastern Italy and Slovenia it’s practiced by a few talented producers.

We’ll start by saying that the Vigne del Malina Sauvignon Blanc 2013 is the current release. These folks lke to put some tank and bottle age their Sauvignon Blanc in their own cellars until they deem it ready. The immediate concern would be that Sauvignon would sacrifice some of its freshness to achieve the nuance developed with aging but there is more than enough lift here to pull it off beautifully. Sauvignon Blanc from this part of the world has its own, rather unique profile.

Aromas of tomato leaf, a certain florality to the citrus aspects of lime and grapefruit and a less aggressive ‘Sauvignon’ demeanor in general is sort of the thread running through a lot of the best efforts from around these parts (Friuli, Alto Adige, etc.). The bottle time tones down the sometimes sharp edges this varietal can have and highlights more the mineral elements in these alluvial gravels.

Fermatation is done in open vats with some maceration of grape skins and frequent punch-downs. Malolactic fermentation and aging is done in older oak barrels for one year, then it sits reclined in bottles for fifteen months at a constant temperature.

The result is a very elegant and stylish approach to Sauvignon Blanc that one could compare to some of the more avant garde Slovenian practitioners, but this bottling comes off a little fresher and more to our taste. Stylistically a little off the beaten path, but in a good way.

The Return of Grey Stack: Sauvignon Blanc like no other…

If you go through and read enough winery websites, you will see a similar thread where the producer is selling the proposition that there is no place like their site for whatever it is that they make. In the absolute sense that is true, but in the reality of tasting as many wines as we do, the differences are generally not all that dramatic. But the Bennett Valley in Sonoma is one of those places where the claim has exceptional merit. We recall some of the early examples of Sauvignon Blanc from Matanzas Creek when it was still run by the original owners. The fruit component was distinctive, unique and quite delicious.

As we have tasted through California Sauvignon Blancs through the years, there have been many fine examples, but only a handful that have set the bar. The most memorable was one called Grey Stack Sauvignon Blanc Rosemary’s Block that pretty much set us on our collective ear and got more attention from the media at that point than any Sauvignon of its time.

This was a dynamic mouthful, notably rich and palate stimulating, with a brilliant beam of acidity and tight focus, but at the same time juicily textured flavors of fig, apricot, grapefruit, and honeydew melon along with some floral notes and Loire-like notes of flint. Long, pure, and remarkably expressive, tasting this 2016, which is apparently the first release by a newly formed partnership, we were immediately transported back to those remarkable efforts that were pulling down 92-94 point reviews back around 2010.

We hadn’t seen the label for a while, nor had there been any reviews save some pretty tepid ones from Wine Spectator in the interim, but we are thrilled to have something back that is truly definitive for a genre. Where does the magic come from? Well we have, as we said, always noticed the uniqueness of the Bennet Valley going back a long ways. There are those that point to the particular clone used here, said to come from Collio in northeastern Italy near the Slavonian border. The winery website says it’s ‘the people’.

Our guess is some combination of ‘all of the above’. But whatever the reason, this Sauvignon is special in the way the Eric Kent we sold a while back was (half of the grapes for that wine came from this vineyard, incidentally). Special juice here, Spectator’s 90-point tout does not do this wine justice.