Michael Huband writes Michael Huband is a wine writer based in London. After a brief, highly unsuccessful stint as a secondary school teacher, he worked in independent wine and spirits shops, gaining a love of, among other things, Godello, Armagnac and concrete-aged Rioja. He is now partner content editor at The Drinks Business magazine.
The only way is Sauvignon Blanc
I am the wine writer your parents warned you about. I sound like I went to a minor public school. I am an acolyte of both Sondheim and Beethoven, shoehorning them into any discussion. I do not own a pair of red trousers, but only because I ditched my pair when the svelte form of my twenties was usurped by the body of a thirty-year-old wine writer.
In short, I should be a wine snob. Against my better judgment, I often am.
But not always. I have some grasp of life beyond the rarefied taste of the wine trade. Growing up, the wines on the table were chosen according to that week’s supermarket offers. Even when I entered the industry, it was not in a metropolis, but in a tiny shop in my home town. There, the owners had to navigate between their love of boutique producers and customers after the dependably mainstream. In Essex, everything is a deal to cut.
Sauvignon Blanc and Essex: a natural affinity
In life and in wine, I cannot deny my Essex origins. The county has many stereotypes: we are, supposedly, unsophisticated, direct, down-to-earth wheeler-dealers. It is simplistic, but it holds a kernel of truth, as if every tale told of Essex has added another layer of bravura. What more could you expect from a bunch of eastenders who fled east searching a wider slice of sky?
The stereotypes also extend to wine drinking. While the men are said to exist on a diet of lager, for women, only ‘Savvy B’ will do.
Instinctively, I assume this is lazy, broad-brush thinking. Yet, remembering that bottle shop, two fixtures in the fridge were non-negotiable. There always had to be a Prosecco and there always had to be a Sauvignon Blanc. If it could go toe-to-toe with Cloudy Bay – the most frequently requested brand – in price, style and quality, so much the better.
I had to find out whether the stereotypes of Essex women held true, and so turned to the only source I know that can boast complete authority. I asked my mother’s branch of the WI.
A deeply unscientific straw poll yielded a number of favourite varieties, from Primitive to Viognier to Shirz. Yet, if you had to declare a winner, it was Sauvignon Blanc. The variety featured in 20% of answers, notably ahead of second place Malbec and leagues ahead of any other white grape.
In truth, I was not surprised. I had seen it for myself in that first job. Moreover, I feel a certain synergy between my Essex compatriots and Sauvignon Blanc. So many of the same insults are thrown at them. They are cheap, unsophisticated, brash and one-dimensional. For both, it is an unjust characterisation.
Why do we neglect a noble grape?
Of course, snobbery around Sauvignon Blanc is not universal. Its plantings have been on the rise for decades, while the explosion in Marlborough's popularity has been one of the great success stories of the turn of the millennium. Sauvignon Blanc will likely always find its audience.
Yet, in wine industry circles it is seldom the star. You see it in a lack of enthusiasm; how rarely a buyer will evangelise about it or how a bottle at free-pour tasting might not need replacing so frequently. Even when it achieves stardom, for instance in Sancerre or as part of a Bordeaux blanc, the terroir or the winemaking pulls focus, as if the grape were a bit player. I struggle to imagine such an injustice done to Pinot Noir or Riesling.
There are, I think, a couple of reasons for this. The first is perfectly reasonable. In the wine trade you are presented with so many things to taste that you crave the new. Chardonnay is a classic ‘wine lover’s grape’ precisely because it can offer newness. It is immensely versatile, with a chameleonic adaptability to terroir, style and price. Sauvignon Blanc is equally capable of greatness, but less variable: it tends to be young, still and unoaked, with a more consistent flavour profile across its many guises. Perhaps, even if the quality is comparable, Sauvignon Blanc has less capacity to surprise and challenge our jaded palates.
There is probably, too, an element of snobbery. Sauvignon Blanc is accessible. It does not need age to be brilliant, so no lectures on horizontal storage are required. Nor does it require a great investment of time and money for the winemaker to secure quality. Even in the glass, it does not need years of expertise to detect some of its precise, pronounced flavours.
In short, for those of us whose trade is ‘demystifying wine’, Sauvignon Blanc represents a little bit of a threat. Here is a wine that needs no demystifying.
A case for reevaluation
Thus, too often, we dismiss it. In doing so, we deny ourselves a great pleasure of the wine world. In its classic expressions – citrus on slate from Pouilly-Fumé, or being Marlborough’s fistful of gooseberries – it is delicious, refreshing and energising. Less commonplace examples are equally enthralling: potently spiced barrel-aged Californian wines, say, or the supple waxiness of aged Graves.
Perhaps most excitingly, these incredible wines remain cheap. A great bottle is still within reach at supermarket prices and remarkable wines, such as single vineyard Sancerre, can still give you change from £50. Try to pull the same trick with white Burgundy, and you will find a different result.
In fact, perhaps the women of Essex have cut a remarkable deal. In return for wine professionals turning their noses up at ‘Savvy B’, they now have a delightful source of white wine whose prices are not skyrocketing. For anyone who actually cares about wine – an industry of community and conviviality at its heart – that should be cause to celebrate.
The lessons are clear to me. Malign Sauvignon Blanc, and you are only depriving yourself of joy (not to mention money).
And, as anyone from the county will soon inform you, the women of Essex are usually right.
Image by diane555 via iStock.
