Picture a winery lab lined with brimming beakers. A racy sauvignon blanc white wine in one, an earthy sémillon in another. Like mixing up a monster martini, winemakers blend single-varietal wines together to find their signature cocktail. The painstaking process adds complexity to the final product and squeezes maximum flavor out of a vineyard. Getting the right combo, however, isn't obvious — the wrong recipe can turn people off like this season of Top Chef. But as far as blends go, the French got this stuff down, especially in their Bordeaux whites.
It's unfortunate, but whites from Bordeaux cower under the power of their more popular red brothers. The white underdog, however, is beginning to prod the fickle affections of the masses – they now peek out from wine lists everywhere. And for a good reason: White Bordeaux's lowly status means they're cheap.
Sauvignon blanc and sémillon make up the bulk of Bordeaux's whites. Although these grapes grow everywhere now, they originated in this southwestern wine region and have comingled just as long. Crisp, grapefruity and sometimes cat-pee-ish, sauvignon blanc has risen to star status in New Zealand and California, among other places. But in Bordeaux, it has a certain je ne sais quoi — a well-bred sophistication sometimes lacking in their wacky foreign cousins. On the opposite end of the spectrum, sémillon's most notable feat its transformation into the highly-valued, lusciously sweet dessert wine called Sauternes. (More about dessert wines).
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2009.