Archive for the 'Sauvignon Blanc' Category

Wine Enthusiast Magazine Scores, July 2010

 

 

 

 

90 Santa Barbara Winery 2008 Sauvignon Blanc (Santa Ynez Valley); $15. A beautiful Sauvignon Blanc that shows why this warmish Santa Barbara County valley is such a natural home for the variety. With crisp acidity and a creamy texture, it’s dry and minerally, with interestingly rich flavors of citrus fruits, melons and pears, and a touch of smoky oak. Editors’ Choice. —S.H.

87 Santa Barbara Winery 2008 ZCS (California); $13. This blend of Zinfandel, Carignane and Sangiovese probably tastes like the red wines the immigrants drank years ago. It’s bone dry and rustic and clean and pure, with modest alcohol. Wash it down with salumi, pasta marinara, or just a plain roast chicken.—S.H.

92 Santa Barbara Winery 2007 Reserve Chardonnay (Sta. Rita Hills); $22. This is an elaborate, oaky Chardonnay made in the popular style that has made California Chard such a success. It’s rich in pineapple jam, apricot, buttered toast, vanilla and leesy flavors, and grows better as it warms in the glass. —S.H. 

 90 Lafond 2007 SRH Chardonnay (Sta. Rita Hills); $22. Good price for such a nice Chardonnay from the Santa Rita Hills. The wine is very dry and crisp in acidity, with a bracing mouthfeel that offers rich, oak inspired flavors of pineapples, pears and green apples. Nice now with Ahi tuna tartare or grilled salmon. —S.H.

 90 Lafond 2006 Pinot Noir Lafond Vineyard (Sta. Rita Hills); $48.This is a big, ripe, full-bodied and oaky Pinot Noir. It’s too powerful to drink now, unless you don’t mind immaturity. The raspberry, cherry and blood orange flavors are of the pie-filling type,and the oak sticks out in smoky, vanilla sweetness. Give it 4–5 years in the cellar to come around. Cellar Selection. —S.H.

Labor Day Grill Outs

Yes, Labor Day Weekend is here, it’s true…

Back to school, grapes to the press, juice to the barrel, shorter days, and cooler temperatures…

No rest or holiday for the winemaker this weekend as the hot temperatures hastened ripe fruit and rising sugars.  We have started Harvest here at Santa Barbara Winery with Sauvignon Blanc being the first picked.  It was two years ago that fruit was picked to go into our currently released Sauvignon Blanc.

In honor of the closing of summer and Labor Day Barbeques, the Tasting Room is having a Limited Time Case Special on our 2007 Sauvignon Blanc.  Special Case Price is 144.00 (12 750mL bottles / case). 

So how do you choose wines for your Labor Day Grill Out?  The same way you choose for any other outdoor summertime gathering… choose what you like!  But if you need a little bit of direction… Try a Syrah with your spiced Ribs or Beef, ZCS with your burgers, and Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay with fish, chicken or shrimp…

Joanie Hudson, Director National and International Marketing, Santa Barbara Winery / Lafond Winery & Vineyards

Stylistically Speaking…

Wine people are known to throw around such terms as ’stylistically,’ ‘nose,’ ‘palate,’ ‘oaked,’ ‘ML,’ and on and on down the sensory vocabulary list.  So why do these terms matter?  What makes one Sauvignon Blanc different than the next?  If you’ve had a wine of a particular varietal and liked it one time, doesn’t mean you’re going to like it the next.  This is where wine style comes into play.  For example, consumers typically form early opinions on the commonly bottled Chardonnay varietal.  If you had one too many glasses of a poorly made, over-oaked Chardonnay early in your wine drinking days, that stereotypical butter bomb descriptor may taint your impression of this type of wine for years to come (until you have tasted enough to see the enormous range of wine styles that this varietal can produce).  

Here is an excerpt from an interesting article from The Capital on this type of stylistic difference in Sauvignon Blanc, comparing the lush California style to a grassier New Zealand counterpart.  And herein lies the beauties of wine, and why it’s important to find your preference – it’s not that one is better than the other by any means, it just depends on the style that you prefer to sip on your patio.

But, oddly, the restaurant bottle we recently had didn’t seem to have a lot of the aggressive aromas we expect from the grape variety. And it had a lush texture – atypical of the mouth-puckering, grassy and crisply acidic character of sauvignon blanc.

Thinking the wine’s flavor had been scalped because of a flaw often associated with TCA, a chemical compound that is the primary cause of cork taint, Tom bought a second bottle the next day.

Although he expected to find a totally different wine, it was the same. So, what gives?

California is making its sauvignon blanc differently than New Zealand, Washington and other wine-growing regions.

The restaurant’s Sauvignon Blanc is blended with 25 percent semillon, a grape variety that tends to soften its assertive companion. The barrel fermentation and stirring of the lees also gives it a lush, sweet oak quality. The grassy, herbaceous notes associated with New Zealand versions are simply gone.

Whether this is good depends on what you want from sauvignon blanc. The grassy, grapefruit flavors are too strong for many folks, so the California version embodies the best assets of the grape without making your mouth pucker.

The grape known best in France’s Loire Valley, sauvignon blanc is a versatile wine for spring and summer weather. It can handle a serious chill and still taste good as an aperitif or alongside everything from a cold pasta to grilled chicken with a citrus preparation.

2007 Santa Barbara Winery Sauvignon Blanc, 16.00

Full Article

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery