vinhozinho

The house grapes · white

Sauvignon Blanc: the white that smells green

Sauvignon Blanc is the grape behind the white that wakes up your mouth: light body, high acidity and a smell that recalls passion fruit, lime and cut grass.

A vine leaf, a bunch of white grapes and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc wine.
fig. 1From bunch to glass: dry and high in acidity, the mouthwatering kind.
Color
White
On Vinhozinho
103 labels have Sauvignon Blanc · 83 made from Sauvignon Blanc alone · from Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Portugal
Price
lowest: up to R$ 60 · highest: R$ 200 to 300 · see the wines
Family
a parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, with Cabernet Franc

Some people even pick up green bell pepper. It's a white for hot days, for the beach, for fish on the grill.

What it's like in the glass

Light to medium body, dry and with high acidity, the kind that makes your mouth water and calls for the next sip.

The smell is its calling card, and the place where the grape grows changes its accent. Some Sauvignons lean green: cut grass, tomato leaf, asparagus, bell pepper. Others go more tropical: passion fruit, pineapple, guava. Lime and grapefruit show up in both.

It's usually made without oak and shines young, when its freshness is at its peak.

Where it comes from

It's French. It became famous in the Loire Valley, where it makes the whites of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, and it also has roots in the Bordeaux region.

On the family tree, VIVC, the international catalog of grape varieties, confirms by DNA a direct parent-offspring link with Savagnin, of the Traminer family. The other side of the family is still unknown.

What it pairs with

Think of food with lime, herbs and green things: ceviche, salad, grilled fish, moqueca capixaba (a fish stew from Espírito Santo), casquinha de siri (stuffed crab shells), heart-of-palm pastel, salt cod fritters.

Goat cheese usually goes very well, and so do dishes with cilantro. Fried bar snacks? The acidity cleans the fat from your mouth and gets you ready for the next one. It's a suggestion, not a rule: your taste is the boss.

Its other names

VIVC records 100 synonyms. The most useful on the shelf: Blanc Fumé, Fumé Blanc, Muskat-Sylvaner and Sauvignon Bianco. In Chile's official vineyard register, it appears as Sauvignon Blanc, Blanc Fumé and Fumé, all lumped together. Saw Fumé Blanc on the label? That's the one.

The famous daughter: Cabernet Sauvignon

In 1997, researchers at the University of California, Davis used DNA to solve a centuries-old mystery: Cabernet Sauvignon, the grape Chile plants most, is the offspring of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.

The link to Cabernet Franc was already suspected. The white side of the family caught even the scientists by surprise. And the Sauvignon in both names wasn't even a clue: according to UC Davis itself, the word comes from the French for “wild” and referred to a resemblance to wild vines, not to kinship. A coincidence that became a family tree.

Where it shines today

On the site's pages, the regions where Sauvignon Blanc shows up most among the labels in the house list. The number counts labels.

In Chile, it's the most planted white and the country's second wine grape, behind only Cabernet Sauvignon: 13,714 hectares in 2024, according to the SAG, the Chilean government's agricultural service. Its home is the cool coastal valleys, like Casablanca, with morning fog, and San Antonio, home to Leyda, right by the Pacific.

In Brazil, it's among the authorized grapes of the Indication of Provenance (IP) Vinhos de Altitude de Santa Catarina, with vineyards between 900 and 1,400 meters, in the country's coldest wine region.

In Argentina, Wines of Argentina, the body that promotes the country's wine, points to Patagonia as the place where whites are making a difference, with Sauvignon Blanc among them.

In Portugal, it shows up in small slices in Tejo, Lisboa, the Península de Setúbal and the Algarve: less than 3% of the vineyard in each region, according to the IVV, the official wine institute.

To start with: Sauvignon Blanc by price range

The price range the house saw at big stores in Brazil, in the month shown. The price changes; the range tends to stay.

Throwing a party? How many bottles to buy →

Top rated with Sauvignon Blanc

Average rating from the people who drank it (X-Wines), from 1 to 5. Tap to see the wine's page.

See all 103 labels with Sauvignon Blanc in the search →

Open a well-chilled one on a hot day, with fish and lime nearby. If the passion fruit smell gets you, that's it: you've found a white to call your own.

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Sources for this page

  • VIVC — Sauvignon Blanc (passport no. 10790) — www.vivc.de
  • UC Davis — DNA Fingerprinting Reveals Parentage of Classic Wine Grape (1997) — www.ucdavis.edu
  • Vins de Loire (InterLoire) — Sauvignon blanc — www.vinsdeloire.fr
  • SAG (Chile) — Catastro Vitícola 2024, executive report — www.sag.gob.cl
  • Wines of Chile — Winegrowing Regions — www.winesofchile.org
  • Embrapa Uva e Vinho — IP Vinhos de Altitude de Santa Catarina (text reproduced on Portal do Agronegócio) — www.portaldoagronegocio.com.br
  • Wines of Argentina — Patagonia — winesofargentina.org
  • IVV (Instituto da Vinha e do Vinho) — Dados da Vinha — www.ivv.gov.pt
  • Labels, ratings, grapes and regions on the house list: X-Wines, an open scientific dataset (de Azambuja, R. X. et al., 2023), checked by the house — github.com

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