Sauvignon blanc

White variety - Sauvignon blanc

• General: Sauvignon blanc describes a success story that went around the wine world and rose to become one of the 20 most important grape varieties in viticulture. The origin lies in the French Loire with its famous appellations "Sancerre" and "Pouilly -Fumé". The winemakers represent the style of straightforward and lighter, mineral and spicy wines from chilled fermentation, often also in wooden barrels. Producers in the cooler regions of New Zealand, Chile and South Africa have adapted this style and pushed it towards full-bodied, vegetal wines. The variety is also suitable for making dessert wines and has helped the "Sauternes" and "Graves" regions in Bordeaux to world fame. In the Palatinate, the variety has been native for a good twenty years and, due to the northern climate, allows a wide variety of vintages.
• Cluster: The grapes are small and compact, partly shouldered. The round, small berries reach a golden yellow colour when fully ripe.
• Wine: The variety holds an infinite variety of wine styles. They range from wines chilled in steel tanks and reductively fermented with the smell of blackcurrant, kiwi, gooseberry, grass, elderflower to exotic attributes of passion fruit, lychee and grapefruit when harvested later and aged in wooden barrels.
• Cultivation: Due to the strong growth and the susceptibility to botrytis on very fertile, wet sites, lighter soils and drier sites should be selected. Depending on the location, the slight tendency to trickle, which is typical for the variety, can be an advantage. The variety is relatively thick-skinned. However, with increasing physiological ripeness, the risk of botrytis increases with compact grapes. Good aeration of the grape zone is advantageous in order to make optimal use of the harvest window.