One of the great wine success stories of the past decade has been the steady and strong growth in the popularity of sauvignon blanc, which had previously played the redheaded stepchild to chardonnay in the U.S. market. Thanks to the runaway success of New Zealand’s racy, dry sauvignon blancs, more and more producers around the world have opted to plant the variety, which is most commonly associated with its homes in France’s Loire Valley and Bordeaux regions.
With the variety’s success has come the inevitable uptick in pricing, especially for New Zealand’s examples. While few sauvignon blancs from the New World approach the price levels of Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé, the painful fact is that very few Kiwi versions of serious quality can be found for under $15.
Enter Chile. Bordeaux-styled cabernet sauvignons first put Chile on the map for American wine lovers in the late 1970s, but the most intriguing wines being made there now, for my money, are fresh, unoaked sauvignon blancs that retail for around $10. Most of Chile’s vineyards were originally planted in the warm Central Valley, not far from the capital city of Santiago, often alongside grapes that are comfortable in the area’s hotter temperatures. But sauvignon blanc there can’t produce the lively wines that are typically made in France’s cool Loire Valley or in the coastal regions of South Africa or New Zealand.
Chile’s wine producers are highly adaptable, though, and starting in the mid-1990s they responded to the nascent demand for nervy, citrus fruit-dominated wines by planting sauvignon blanc in cooler regions west and south of the older Maule and Maipo Valleys, in vineyards that are often within view of the Pacific Ocean. Casablanca, which is west of Santiago and heavily influenced by cooling sea breezes, is the region most commonly encountered in the U.S. market, and there are now dozens of good sauvignon blanc options readily available to American consumers.
Even more interesting are the sauvignon blancs coming out of Leyda and San Antonio, which are south of Casablanca and now produce a handful of examples that can bear comparison to wines from France or New Zealand that cost three times as much—or more. Less often spotted in the American market but perhaps the most intriguing of all are the sauvignon blancs that are starting to emerge from the far northern Elqui Valley, which features both coastal vineyards and sites planted over a mile above sea level. As Elqui lies far off the tourist route, I suspect that these wines will remain under the radar of most winos for at least a few more years, but adventurous Chilean producers are paying serious attention to the region.
Here are a few of Chile’s best values in sauvignon blanc from the 2009 vintage, all brought in by importers with national distribution and all in the market now or due to arrive shortly. (I recently tasted through dozens of sauvignon blancs from Chile—not to mention eight or nine hundred additional wines from other varieties—and my full reviews of about three hundred of the best of them are featured in the just-posted new issue of the International Wine Cellar.) Winos searching for the best bang for their buck in citrussy, energetic white wines will have to work awfully hard to beat this set of sauvignons for sheer juicy enjoyment. Try the spicy, tightly wound Viña Cono Sur Central Valley ($10; Vineyard Brands); the juicier, plumper but equally lively Viña Errazuriz Estate Casablanca Valley ($11; Vintus, Inc.); and the deeper, plusher Viña San Pedro’s Castillo de Molina Elqui Valley ($11; Shaw-Ross International). Also worth a look are the Viña Los Vascos Casablanca Valley ($12; Pasternak Wine Imports), which is zesty, focused and showing very nice herbal complexity, and the Veramonte Casablanca Valley ($11; Huneeus Vintners), a sauvignon blanc that offers the stony, zesty character of some of New Zealand’s better examples but for just a hair over $10.
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