Sauvignon Blanc

High-acid, herbal, citrusy; the world's defining cool-climate white.

Sauvignon Blanc is high-acid, aromatic, and pyrazine-driven — grass, gooseberry, grapefruit, passionfruit — with cool sites pushing the green end and warmer ones the tropical end. Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé are the Loire benchmarks, restrained and flinty. Marlborough's explosive style redefined the grape commercially in the 1980s and 90s. Bordeaux blends it with Sémillon for white Graves; Napa fume blanc puts it in oak. The grape genetically crossed with Cabernet Franc to produce Cabernet Sauvignon.