A Beautiful Sauvignon Blanc from A Great Napa Vineyard

Earlier in the year I was given a bottle Hagafen Sauvignon Blanc 2010, by a friend who had just returned from a trip to San Francisco. The vineyard and tasting room is situated on the Silverado Trail, one mile south of the renowned Stags Leap District; they also have two vineyards on the eastern benchland of Napa. Founded by Irit and Ernie Weir in 1979, with the aim of this is to produce high quality fine wines and according to Jewish dietary laws, producing wines from Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah (Shiraz), Riesling and Zinfandel in small lots, which results in a total production of only 8,000 cases.

On pouring the wine you got a bright but very pale Apple green colour, with quite pronounced aromas of citrus, grapefruit and lime, I then got a tiny hint of stone fruit in the background. On the palate, the favours came across as the aromas, grapefruit, lime and again that tiny hint of stone fruit. Which were just fantastic, along with this it had just the right amount of acidity to go with the fruit favours and make your mouth water.

I have to admit, if I hadn't know it was a Sauvignon Blanc, embarrassingly I have to say I could have mistaken it for a Riesling. It was an excellently balanced wine that was very refreshing and thoroughly enjoyable to drink. If you can get hold of a bottle then I'd definately recommend it, with the added bonus that it's Kosher, just in case you needed it to be!

Having realised that I had got very out of touch with whites, I felt I needed to re-associate my self with some of the great white grapes. I was fortunate enough to spending a week’s holiday in San Francisco, and took the opportunity to hire a car and drive up to Napa with the plan to taste as many whites as I could. Having tasted this Sauvignon Blanc we headed first of all to Hagafen’s tasting room, and really started to understand the difference between this and their Rieslings, and they were fantastic, so much so, I bought a bottle of their White Riesling, Rancho Wieruszowski Vineyard 2010, looking forward to reviewing it soon!