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This week I covered California Sauvignon Blanc in my monthly tasting column for Jancis Robinson. In service of that, I tasted around 150 Sauvignon Blancs from Napa and Sonoma. I selected roughly 40 of them to feature in my column for Jancis, but there were certainly more than that would be worth your time if you were a fan of this variety (along with millions of others these days, apparently).
As long as you could afford it.
Sauvignon Blanc has long been known as a “cash flow” wine by most California producers. You harvest it, ferment it, settle it in a tank, bottle it, and have it ready for sale in the spring following the harvest. Sometimes long before your red wines have even completed their malolactic fermentations. The sale of those bottles in the spring gives you money to buy barrels, pay your workers, and even purchase fruit for the next harvest, something your Pinot won’t do for 18 months or your Cabernet for sometimes more than 2 years.
This has changed a bit in recent years as the Graves style of Sauvignon Blanc has become more popular (especially in Napa), with producers barrel-fermenting and barrel-aging their wines sometimes for up to 18 months. Invariably (and understandably) these wines have also become more expensive than their tank-aged brethren.
That said, the average prices of all Sauvignon Blanc wines have climbed significantly in the last decade or two. The average price of the wines I reviewed below is more than $41 per bottle. Gone are the days when you could get a nice bottle of California Sauvignon Blanc from a boutique producer for $15 or $20. Now you’ll often pay north of $40, and occasionally more than $100.
Frankly, those are ridiculous prices, even acknowledging the extra cost required for the barrels and aging time, as well as the escalating costs of labor and grapes in California. I don’t mean to imply that producers are somehow gouging consumers (though I’m sure more than a few are making a tidy profit off these wines) but only that in this globalized world California Sauvignon Blanc now has to compete with bottles from Chile, South Africa, New Zealand, France, Italy, and more, the vast majority of which can be purchased for under $30.
California producers now run the distinct risk of pricing themselves out of the market for the purpose that this grape variety seems to serve for most people: something pleasurable, fresh, and easy to drink shortly after purchasing the bottle. As the French would say, these wines are most certainly vin de soif, rather than vin de garde.
Other than brand prestige, there’s not much to justify paying $120 for a wine that’s the same quality as one that costs $16. Yes that’s harsh, but it needs to be said.
I realize it’s easy for me to sit here on the sidelines and tell the wine industry that it needs to make cheaper wines in an age where inflation, lingering supply-chain issues, real estate, insurance, labor, regulations, and even recycling fees all contribute to the rising cost-of-goods-sold. But I honestly believe that vanishingly few wine consumers want to pay $40-60 for a bottle of California Sauvignon Blanc no matter how delicious it is.
I know I certainly don’t.
This sense is made all the more acute as you browse through the wines rated below. I’ve got 33 wines that I’m rating betwen 8.5 and 9 on my ten point scale. The cheapest is $16, the most expensive is $119. Other than brand prestige, there’s not much to justify paying $120 for a wine that’s the same quality as one that costs $16.
Yes that’s harsh, but it needs to be said.
These wines are (by and large) not profound expressions of terroir. They are not wines that will improve for decades in your cellar. These wines (other than that insane Screaming Eagle bottling) are not investment-grade with a secondary market value. They are (hopefully) refreshing bits of California sunshine captured in a bottle that should put a smile on your…
[ad_2]Source : https://www.vinography.com/2024/02/california-sauvignon-blanc-is-tasty-but-at-what-price
