Wine Blogging Wednesday: North Vs. South: Sauvignon Blanc.

This is our first attempt at participating in Wine Blogging Wednesday, the monthly virtual/web-based tasting event that is becoming quite popular in the wine/web community. Raised glass to Rémy at The Wine Case up in Quebec for hosting this month’s event. His North vs. South tasting theme was an interesting one, and we decided to pit a Napa Sauvignon Blanc from the North against a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc from the South.

In hindsight, I would have liked to have two wines of the same vintage but we wound up with Sauvignon Blancs that were a year apart, although they were both in the $18 a bottle price range.

Our Northern hemisphere Sauvignon Blanc: the 2007 Source Gamble Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc from Napa. The Southern hemisphere contender the 2008 Haras Estate Sauvignon Blanc from the Maipo Valley region of Chile.

Let me start by saying, there are no losers here- only winners. No bigger winners than Jeff and myself, and our friend Sean who was lucky enough to stop by when we were ‘working’ on this.

And it was really interesting; I very rarely compare wines head to head and this was an eye-opening tasting.

Jeff carefully poured the wines into glasses, using a dry-erase marker to clearly mark the glass with an “N” for north and “S” for south. (We don’t use ‘wine-charms’ here at WineExpedition).

We started by tasting the wines without food. Right away the Haras was BIG on the nose. Lots of citrus and a tad of peaches. Whereas the Source was very subtle on the nose, almost non-existent. Just a hair of fruit with a little note of something green that we couldn’t quite place.

Once we got the wine in our mouth, again, the Haras was HUGE- Grapefruit o’ plenty, with some peach and a light almost effervescent quality. The Source was much less dynamic; a bit of melon and a subtle minerality, but overall the Haras was LOUD and the Source was quiet.

We decided to take it the next level and brought food into the mix. We picked up some sushi from Katsuya in Hollywood: the Rainbow Roll, Spicy Tuna roll, Rock Shrimp tempura roll, Halibut Usuzukuri w/ uzu pepper and the Crispy Rice w/ Spicy Tuna, to be precise. Bottom line: Seafood with spice.

All of a sudden, the Source Sauvignon Blanc SHOWED UP. In the presence of spicy food, the wine that appeared to be mellow and quiet suddenly stood up and spoke up… it complimented our food and allowed the spices to shine. It felt like the wine was enveloping the spicy fish and giving it acidic, fruity boundaries. On the contrary, the Haras felt like it was fighting with the food a bit. It wasn’t bad or offensive, it’s just that with the opportunity to compare, the Source felt like it welcomed the food while the Haras was competing a bit.

The Verdict: Both wines were great. The Southern Hemisphere Haras is a feisty Sauv Blanc with beautiful grapefruit flavors. The Northern Hemisphere Source Sauv Blanc is a subtle, reserved wine with notes of melon and hints of minerals. When spicy food is brought into the mix, the Source from Napa in the North was allowed to show its quality.

I type this blog looking at two empty bottles-there were no losers in this bout.