SA vs international Sauvignon Blanc taste-off

“How successful can Sauvignon Blanc be at the top end of the market?”, asked Andrew Mellish of Mellish Family Vineyards in Durbanville. “Can it compete with those examples of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc that are causing all the excitement?”

He was speaking before a tasting put on jointly by him and Andri Hanekom of Bloemendal, Thys Louw of Diemersdal and Matt Day of Klein Constantia. 16 wines were tasted blind in four flights of four, each flight containing one international benchmark.

The flights were as follows:

Flight One
Iona Elgin Highlands Wild Ferment 2021
Tement Ried Zieregg Karmileten Berg 2019
Bartho Eksteen Houtskool 2019
Mellish Family Vineyards Blanc Fumé 2021

Flight Two
De Grendel Koetshuis 2019
David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner Wild Ferment 2019
Vergelegen Reserve 2019
Alphonse Mellot Edmond Sancerre 2016

Flight Three
Thorne & Daughtgers Snakes & Ladders 2019
Daguenau Buisson Rehard Blanc Fumé de Pouilly 2015
Bloemendal Suider Terras 2015
Klein Constantia Clara 2021

Flight Four
Trizanne Signature Wines Sondagskloof White 2018
Reyneke Reserve 2017
Diemersdal The Journal 2019
Le Petit Cheval Bordeaux Blanc 2018

I ranked the wines as follows:
1.= Klein Constantia Clara 2021 – 96
1.= Le Petit Cheval Bordeaux Blanc 2018 – 96
1.= Trizanne Signature Wines Sondagskloof White 2018 – 96

4. Vergelegen Reserve 2019 – 95

5.= Diemersdal The Journal 2019 – 94
5.= Mellish Family Vineyards Blanc Fumé 2021 – 94

7. Reyneke Reserve – 93

8.= Alphonse Mellot Edmond Sancerre 2016 – 92
8.= Bloemendal Suider Terras 2015 – 92
8.= Iona Elgin Highlands Wild Ferment 2021 – 92
8.= Bartho Eksteen Houtskool 2019 – 92

12.= Daguenau Buisson Rehard Blanc Fumé de Pouilly 2015 – 91
12.= Tement Ried Zieregg Karmileten Berg 2019 – 91
12.= Thorne & Daughtgers Snakes & Ladders 2019 – 91

15.= David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner Wild Ferment 2019 – 90
15.= De Grendel Koetshuis 2019 – 90

What the winemakers of the four properties wanted to interrogate was both the ratings and price ceiling that seems to apply to local Sauvignon Blanc – the Tement from Austria sells for approximately €60 a bottle, the Alphonse Mellot for €70, Daguenau Buisson Rehard for €120 and Le Petit Cheval Bordeaux Blanc for €160.

Some general observations. Firstly, while the South African wines might broadly match their international counterparts when it comes to intrinsic quality, the simply don’t have the same label cachet as their international counterparts – Steiermark, Loire and Bordeaux have earned a premium in the market that South Africa has yet to achieve.

As for stylistics, the case was made during the tasting that the South African wines tended to have harder acidities than their international counterparts potentially making them less universally palatable. Worth considering but I would counter-argue that the best local examples have a drive and vitality that sets them apart.

An important insight for me arising out of this tasting is that Sauvignon Blanc starts becoming interesting when it deviates from what makes it so commercially successful. The reason it has such a broad popular following is that it easily makes wines that are ostentatiously aromatic, crisp and dry but this is precisely what makes it tedious to more knowledgeable wine drinkers who are looking for less obvious pleasures like texture and detail. A fixation on pyrazines and thiols, which can be relatively easily manipulated in both vineyard and cellar, only takes the winemaker so far.