Sauvignon blanc comes in many guises. It can be dry or sweetish, soft or aggressive, cheap or dear, enticing or dull. It can come from France or Italy, Australia or New Zealand, South Africa or Eastern Europe. Some of the best - and some of the worst - are French.
Good ones - and bad ones - come from Bordeaux. It has been compared, by one illustrious English wine scribe, with cat’s pee. Why do we drink it? Because a good one is delicious, and does not have to be expensive. Chateau la Jaubertie, which mixes sauvignon grapes with semillon and gets the balance right, has long been one of my favourites. It comes from Bergerac, a good area for wine, and Judith Paris used to import it in her days of wine trading in Edinburgh.
Visiting friends the other day, we were poured a South African sauvignon called First Cape, which Tesco sells for a tenner but is currently on sale at half price. This, too, is worth a taste - it’s soft enough to be a more-ish aperitif but has a bit of life to it as well.
First Cape wines are imported by Brand Phoenix of Dorking, Surrey, and you can buy them also at Waitrose, where their limited release Chenin Blanc - not actually one of my favourite grapes - costs £7.99, but their Coral Tree Semillon/Sauvignon, reduced from £8.99 to £5.99, looks like a bargain.
9 January 2015
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