The History of Sauvignon Blanc

Most wines are confined to certain places. The grapes used to make them can’t grow in any kind of climate. This leads to several different wines becoming rare or expensive, making them favorites you can only have once in a while. That’s not the case with sauvignon. Sauvignon is a favorite that comes in many different styles that you can find around the world. 

When talking about sauvignon with other wine enthusiasts, you all likely have different favorite sauvignons, and that’s a special experience. Not many other types of wine are as widely available in so many different tastes as Sauvignon. That’s why we at Fire and Ice have several different types of this wine for people to try.

The Origin of Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon comes from the similarly named grape, sauvignon blanc. The grape was first bred into existence in the Loire Valley in France at some time in the 1500s. That’s nearly 500 years of sauvignon breeding all to perfect the wine’s unique taste, commonly described as a mixture of several different fruits.

Fruit plants, much like livestock, come from breeding together different seeds from the same species. We only know one of the parent grapes that created the original sauvignon blanc, savagnin. Even to this day, we have no idea what the other parent grape was, making it difficult to understand exactly why this grape has become so physically resilient.

The Grape that Makes the Wine

The grape that originally led to this wine is still a wild-growing plant in this area of France and can survive in different climates across the world. It wasn’t until the mid-1750s that sauvignon blanc was bred with another grape to any real success. That grape was cabernet Franc, which led to the popular cabernet sauvignon.

Down the line, once we had discovered how to DNA sequence grapes, Dr. Carole Meredith and her Ph.D. student, John Bowers, discovered in 1996 that a white wine grape and a red wine grape had been mixed to create another white wine. While we can’t know the parentage of the original grape, we do know that at some point recently someone achieved what was thought impossible. 

The Popularity of Sauvignon Blanc

Vintners love sauvignon for how easily they can mix it with other grape seeds when compared to other grape varieties. But people have loved sauvignon since cabernet sauvignon was created, with the cabernet variety becoming the 8th most grown grape in the world in 1990. Cabernet Sauvignon is known for its dark physical features and is beloved for its high alcohol content of 13.5%.

But what arguably led to its dominance on restaurant menus and in our homes is how widely available it is. There are approximately 65,000 acres of land in France alone growing grapes for this wine. It’s easy to get, easy to experiment with, and it’s difficult to make it taste anything less than good. 

Try Sauvignon at Fire and Ice on Toby Creek

But what do sauvignon blanc and the wines that come from it go perfectly with? Food for dinner. When you make a reservation at Fire and Ice you have numerous options of what kind of sauvignon you want to match with your meal. We serve three different sauvignons, all grown from vineyards in California.

• Cult Cabernet Sauvignon: This bottle of the classic and popular wine, comes from grapes grown in Lodi, California.
• Sean Minor Sauvignon Blanc: This bottle comes from Sonoma, California.
• Decoy Cabernet Sauvignon: This bottle also comes from Sonoma, California.

Don’t wait, make a reservation now, and if you want to try outdoor dining in one of our igloos, there’s a separate place to make an online reservation here.