Variety spotlight: six expressions of sauvignon blanc that show off the grape's more refined side

Sauvignon blanc is a little bit misunderstood these days. When thinking of wines made from this variety, most immediately go to the Marlborough's crisp, refreshing and dry expressions with easily identifiable flavours of gooseberry, passionfruit and tropical fruits – generally for under $20 a bottle.

That, too often, is where the general population's understanding of sauvignon blanc begins and ends, with folks rarely exploring its more serious side. If this is you, we're here to show you that there's a world of refined expressions of sauvignon blanc to discover. And with International Sauvignon Blanc Day coming up, we thought we'd share some excellent contemporary versions – hailing from Australia and New Zealand.

These wines will set you back a little more than $20, but within this slightly higher threshold, is where you will find food-friendly sauvignon blancs of greater complexity, often capable of ageing. Read on to find six well-made sauvignon blancs that will build a case for why this variety is worthy of a place in your wine fridge or cellar

Wine to try: 2023 Domaine Naturaliste Sauvage Sauvignon Blanc

It offers the best of the variety, albeit in rather restrained and classy way with winemaking (wild fermentation, on lees for 10 months in French puncheons, one-third new and regular lees stirring) that brings out texture, savouriness and more. Some pine-lime Splice ice-cream, lemon juice and zest, smokin’ moreish sulphides and fine acidity throughout. It’s up there as a great example of a fumé style. – Jane Faulkner, 95 points

Bruce Dukes and Remi Guise shared: As the namesake suggests, Sauvage represents the intersection of wild yeast and energised Margaret River fruit with the restraint of large format French oak puncheons for fermentation and 10 months sur lie maturation. All of this helps make the Sauvage a unique sauvignon blanc.

What do you love about the sauvignon blanc grape?
I am intrigued by sauvignon’s beautiful purity of Elder flowers, lychee and cassis in its youth.  Then, as this wine matures (for up to eight years) the palate fleshes out and elements of cassis flower and red currant appear, all supported by a nearly subliminal background of precise toastiness.

How does your region and winemaking influence this wine? 
The Sauvignon blanc grape seems in sync with Margaret River’s gentle maritime climate, yielding fruit with a wonderful balance of freshness, flavour and texture. Our winemaking seeks to capture and showcase the best of this fruit. 

How is your sauvignon blanc best enjoyed? 
I prefer mine out of a glass, slightly chilled (at 12 to 14oC), so as to best capture the poise, flavours and textures. Sauvage has a flavour and textural presence which makes it great friends with good old fashioned roast chicken, as well as being besties with a barbecued veal chop with a wedge of lemon. Prepare for sublimation. 

RRP $39 | Drink to 2030 | domainenaturaliste.com.au | Shop this wine

Wine to try: 2022 Flowstone Queen of the Earth Sauvignon Blanc

A powerhouse of a wine and regularly one of the best SBs from Margaret River. It’s complex with juicy acidity matched to a textural palate, lots of stone fruit and citrus, a touch of feijoa and freshly cut herbs plus some smoky sulphides. The palate feels tight yet there’s a succulence throughout and it opens revealing expansive flavour. An excellent drink with or without food. – Jane Faulkner, 96 points

Stuart Pym shared: This is a serious and sophisticated expression of sauvignon blanc, from a small vineyard in Karridale, the coolest part of Margaret River. The low yields, and patient winemaking deliver a beautifully subtle and complex sauvignon blanc with great palate presence and length.

What do you love about the sauvignon blanc grape? 
I love its bold and distinctive varietal character, but this can have subtlety and nuance. This is sauvignon blanc with personality – very much looking at the old world expression of the variety, rather than the new world. 

How does your region and winemaking influence this wine? 
Margaret River is a cool to warmish growing region, and our vineyard is in the southern, and coolest part. This allows the grapes to get nicely ripe, but still retain some finesse. Keeping the crops low, and hand picking, does preserve the intensity and finesse of these grapes. The winemaking works with this to display these beautiful characters, and add some subtle underlying textures and flavours.

How is your sauvignon blanc best enjoyed?
This is best enjoyed in a specific sauvignon blanc glass (yes, you can get them), slightly chilled, and with an open mind on what sauvignon blanc can be – prepared to be stunned!

RRP $63 | Drink to 2030 | flowstonewines.com | Shop this wine

Wine to try: 2024 Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc

Deliciously aromatic with scents of honeydew melon and orange blossom, delicately infused with herb garden botanicals. A bright, seasonal expression, with juicy lemon and steely cassis flavours and a generously textured palate garnished with a flourish of pastis and wildflowers. A wine with impressive structure and depth, this is Marlborough sauvignon blanc with the volume turned down a notch. 

Kevin Judd shared: This wine is a uniquely Greywacke interpretation of the classic Marlborough style – exuberant and deliciously aromatic, but with the volume turned down. A finely balanced sauvignon blanc, steeped in citrus and stone fruit characters, with considerable ripeness and minerality, yet retaining the freshness and zest expected of the variety. A multi-layered, mouth-filling wine, balanced by juicy acidity and a crisp, flinty finish. 

What do you love about the sauvignon blanc grape?  
Sauvignon blanc has a unique and vibrant flavour profile, when fully ripe it delivers an enticing combination of exotic tropical characters with more racy herbal elements. In our maritime South Pacific climate it produces wines which have an unmistakable exuberance, with a deliciously juicy, but dry and flavoursome palate structure.  

How does your region and winemaking influence this wine?  
Fruit is sourced from various vineyard sites – each with unique terroirs. Soil types vary from the young alluvial soils of Rapaura and Renwick – which contain high proportions of New Zealand’s ubiquitous greywacke river stones – to the older and denser clay-loams of the Southern Valleys. The region’s maritime South Pacific location gives us an intensely sunny climate, with a very moderate temperature regime, which helps us preserve of intense varietal character and fresh natural acidity. 

We then largely harvest by machine during cool (often cold) night-time conditions, and then are lightly pressed to yield a modest volume of high-quality juice. The juice is cold-settled and racked prior to fermentation, which is primarily carried out in stainless steel tanks. Most batches are inoculated with cultured yeast, but a portion is allowed to undergo spontaneous indigenous yeast fermentation. All individual vineyard batches are left on lees and kept separate until July, when the blend is assembled. This helps our sauvignon gain a great complexity than your average store-bought options.

How is your sauvignon blanc best enjoyed?
There are a lot of foodies at Greywacke, all with their own favourite pairing. With its bright palate and attractive weight, Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc is a lovely partner to food. A few of our top pairings are oysters natural, kingfish and blood orange crudo, lightly smoked salmon, fresh figs with goats’ cheese and crispy coppa, gazpacho and Spagetti alla Neran. We could go on and on.

RRP $32 | Drink to 2030 | greywacke.com | Shop this wine

Wine to try: 2024 Isabel Estate Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc

Freshly-cut passionfruit hull, lychee and squeezed lemons. A hint of elderflower. The wine is bursting at the seams with fruit and whimsy, it's almost dancing, it's so full of life. A tug of war with elevated acidity, a touch of white tea skin grip; the wine is buoyant and perfectly refreshing. – Shanteh Wale, 92 points

Chief Winemaker Jeremy McKenzie shared: We’ve got a pretty defined house style of sauvignon blanc at Isabel – more citrus-driven and precise, rather than a big passionfruit bomb. All the fruit for this wine is sourced from our estate in the Wairau Valley, and around 15% goes into old French oak with wild ferment, which adds another layer of complexity and brings a nice energy to the wine. 2024 was also a strong vintage – probably one of the best I’ve made at Isabel in the last decade. 

What do you love about the sauvignon blanc grape?  
It’s just such an exciting variety to work with – it's robust, resilient and powerful, and it performs vintage after vintage. Despite the different conditions year to year it always delivers something we look forward to working with. There’s real character to the fruit, especially when you’re dealing with mature vines on a single site like ours. 

How does your region and winemaking influence this wine?  
After 25 years making sauvignon blanc in Marlborough, I’ve developed a pretty good understanding of the region’s sub-regions and styles – but with our Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, it all comes down to one special piece of dirt. We’ve got close-planted, low-yielding vines – including some of the original Bordeaux clones – growing on subtly varied soils, which gives us a solid foundation. From there, it’s about building texture and complexity through slow ferments, a bit of barrel work, whole bunch inclusion, and wild yeasts – all while holding onto that signature freshness and acidity. 

How is your sauvignon blanc best enjoyed? 
You really can’t beat it in summer – fresh, chilled, and showcasing that lovely acidity and citrus notes. But it’s not limited to that; there’s enough structure here to enjoy all year round. We love using the Riedel Sauvignon Blanc glass – that slender, narrow opening really lifts the aromatics and shows off the citrus and florals. But really, any narrower glass will help bring those characters forward. When it comes to food pairings, seafood is where it really shines – but it also drinks well on its own thanks to that brightness and freshness.

RRP $30 | isabelestate.co.nz | Shop this wine

Wine to try: 2024 Pegasus Bay Sauvignon Blanc

Straw yellow in colour with greenish reflections. On the delightfully fragranced nose, there are impressions of gooseberry, guava, capsicum and snow pea, melded with savoury undertones of wet stone, fennel and fresh hay. The mouthfeel is wonderfully weighted with defined breadth, while offering superb focus and drive. Splendidly structured by vibrant acidity and ripe phenolics, it canters across the palate, leading to an animated and memorable dismount. 

Edward Donaldson shared: We make a very different expression of sauvignon blanc compared to the classic Kiwi style. Our aim is to make a more complex example that has the ability to age. The wine is 90% SB and 10% Semillon. The Semillon is fermented and aged in old French oak barrels on lees for 10 months. This component gives mid palate wait and texture and provides a good foundation for aging.  

The sauvignon blanc portion is fermented naturally in stainless steel tanks with a high percentage of whole bunch fruit. After fermentation, it has an extended period on skins – approximately 150 days. This has given unique flavours and provides additional complexity and phenolic structure. 

What do you love about the sauvignon blanc grape?  
I love that the variety has so much expression. I personally enjoy the more complex examples that restrain the really overt characters building on complexity through the wine making process with well judged oak, time on lees and so on. Wines made in this style can age gracefully for many years. 

How does your region and winemaking influence this wine?  
North Canterbury makes quite concentrated examples of sauvignon blanc for the most part, mainly due to unsettled weather over flowering often resulting in low levels of pollination and subsequently small crops. Our vines are 40 years old and are un-grafted so the berry size is particularly small.

North Canterbury also has a climate that allows for long slow ripening so our sauvignon blanc is usually harvested weeks after Marlborough for example. This long hang time provides excellent flavour development, so it tends to have a lot of flavour and concentration. Most of the producers here are small family owned wineries resulting in a focus towards quality rather than volume. The wines are often given additional treatment in the winery with the goal of making something interesting and complex rather than an aperitif style.  

How is your sauvignon blanc best enjoyed? 
The best match with our sauvignon blanc would be a baked whole flounder with a citrus and butter sauce. Serve it with a side of crunchy greens such as broccolini, green beans or asparagus. All these flavours together make for a perfect pairing. 

RRP $28 | Drink to 2035 | pegasusbay.com | Shop this wine

Wine to try: 2023 Te Whare Ra TWR Sauvignon Blanc

80/20% Awatere/Wairau Valley fruit; 10% goes into oak for ferment. Blackberry leaf, Thai basil and yellow guava. Blueberry flesh, fennel and chalk. The palate is weighted with ripe passionfruit, nectarine and honeysuckle. This is ripe and rich. It’s densely packed and acidity trots in line, enabling a long, slippery finish. A hint of celery salt and raw cashew on the finish with a smattering of lacey skin texture. Lots of value here, for the price tag, and a memorable wine. – Shanteh Wale, 95 Points

Anna & Jason Flowerday shared: This release is a blend from two specially selected vineyards in two different sub-regions of Marlborough. One of the vineyards is in the Wairau valley – Te Whare Rā – and the other is in the upper Awatere Valley – Shamrock. This release was all grown and made by the Flowerday family which brings us so much joy!

Our aim with this, our classic style of Sauvignon Blanc, is to put 100% effort into making a wine that silences all the doubters, and which restores faith in this fabulous region and the amazing quality of the wines from here

What do you love about the sauvignon blanc grape? 
It’s a new world classic and gives true expression of this altogether unique place we call home. Nowhere else in the wine world has become so famous so fast and I think that speaks volumes about how exceptional Marlborough sauvignon blanc can be when you treat it with respect.

How does your region and winemaking influence this wine?
The growing conditions in the Awatere are characterised by cooler temperatures and slower ripening, which is all important for flavour development and ripe acidity. The wines from this sub-region tend to be more restrained in their youth but have great texture, structure and longevity. The blocks in the Wairau experience warmer days, longer sunshine hours and a bigger diurnal range. These climatic differences result in wines which have lovely fleshiness and texture, and which are characterised by riper tropicals and stone-fruit with a lovely line of minerality.

How is your sauvignon blanc best enjoyed?
Our sauvignon blanc is best enjoyed with seafood and sunshine! Just make sure you don’t serve it too cold – it will give you so much more after allowing it to warm up a tad rather than having it straight from the fridge.

RRP $29 | Drink to 2029 | twrwines.co.nz | Shop this wine