You're right! I did some checking, and golden cape gooseberries are not, it turns out, true gooseberries. Well, dang. I learn something new everyday, I suppose. Looks like I'll have to hunt down some legit gooseberries and see how they stack up as a SB descriptor. Thanks for keeping me honest! Cheers!
@@TheUnknownWinecaster I have always thought that gooseberries were a great descriptor because they have those green flavors of methoxypyrazines as sav blancs even though gooseberries don't have a particular 'gooseberry' flavor that sets them apart like lychees per se.
I love your casts and in my opinion these the most professional, tasteful, respectful and informative wine-education videos available and I applaud you for this. At SET Level 3 we need someone like you to talk to us in an adult way, history, geography, culture included. You respect your audience. On the SB video, just one comment from me: what you are referring to as 'gooseberry' on the picture in your video is Physalis (a fruit native of Peru), nothing to do with the European or Northern Africa species of gooseberry Ribes uva-crispa , which is green in colour, slightly hairy, large grapes, highly acidic and certainly not exotic as Physalis. This what my European tutors are referring to as the SB 'gooseberry' aroma and flavour, and I agree with them. Perhaps this is where the confusion comes from. I pray you have the energy to continue publishing your wine casts, they are INSPIRING. Thank you.
New Zealand is the leader in producing quality Sauvignon Blanc as far as I'm concerned .I always make it a point to make sure NZ is the region it's coming from when I shop
Thank you so much for Winecasts! I am a great fan and look forward to each new upload. Thank you for your time and passion, and humor! ;-) Very helpful and well done! Cheers!
Just recently discovered your channel and am really enjoying it...so much detailed information about the regions and varietals...thank you for your hard work and time that goes into these videos. 👍🏼 having grown up in the UK I can confirm that the gooseberries you have sampled and not the same as the European gooseberries that we find in our British hedgerows, you may want to taste the European gooseberries to compare it better with the SVB profile. Also..another comment below suggested trying the Bacchus variety....would love to see your comments on that...I feel that british wine is a relatively hidden gem that deserves more attention. Once again, thanks for the great content!
Gooseberries are hard to find on the West Coast of the United States where I live. Most of my experience with the flavor has been through jams and jellies. I think there is an affinity between gooseberry and Sauv Blanc; I just think it's interesting that so many people use the descriptor when they have little or no practical experience with gooseberries. Cheers!
Ha ha pipi du chat - it is in my Le Nez du Vin aroma kit under black currant leaf - another one of those things that not many people have ever experienced. Love your videos
I like New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs. You get deeper citrus flavors . I would also try Pinot Grigios once in awhile .Not a fan of red wine as they tend to be too sweet for my liking
Thank you so much for the videos. It helps me a lot in learning more about Sauvignon Blanc. One thing I would like to point out is the gooseberry you show in the video is actually cape gooseberry. In my opinion, cape gooseberries are sweeter, taste of tropical fruits (think maybe a cross between mango and blueberry) and have seeds that are smaller (akin to those of figs). Gooseberries, on the other hand, are not enclosed in calyx, are green when unripe and red with visible green veins when ripe, can be quite sour and have flavours of blueberry and "greens" like grass/leaf. I think this might be the reason why Sauvignon blac is said to have flavours of gooseberry (due to grass flavour). The skins of gooseberries are quite thick and the seeds are larger. They are very tannic and produce a very chalky sensation on your tongue. Gooseberries are sadly not my favourite fruit... edit: I just noticed that another comentator had already pointed this out.
I'm quite new on my own personal wine journey ,a recent subscriber and especially new to the world of white wines. As it happens I just drank a bottle of white that is labeled a Sauvignon ("de la Renaissance") - Val de Loire IGP on the bottle. I obviously assumed it to be a Sauvignon Blanc since the white seemed implied by its colour. But after binge watching most of your videos I realised that there are lots of blends or even related grapes with often even similarly sounding names so it can be dangerous to make assumptions as an inexperienced wine drinker. Furthermore I keep a list of all the wine bottles I bought to this day to better help me locate my personal preferences. Looking back I now realise that I focused on the completely wrong things on the label. Many of the names were not only blends but from what I can tell completely made up to sell better in foreign markets. I also failed to write down the precise region from where the grapes originated if it was even listed. So thanks a lot for all the educative work you do on this channel! ~ Mat from German.
Thank you for the feedback, and I'm glad that the videos are helpful. I think keeping a list is a great idea, as i can think of a number of times that I swore I wouldn't forget this or that bottle that I particularly enjoyed only to be unable to remember it later. Cheers!
Please do, and thank you for the compliment! I like your channel, too (stumbled across it from a comment you left on Hillbilly Wine 101's most recent vid.). Just subscribed and dropped you into my featured channels on my home page; hopefully, that'll send some folks your way. Cheers!
Just a heads up , if you taste Gooseberries from Europe or Britain that is maybe the flavor people are describing as they are tart and high acid berries that are generally sweetened before use . Really enjoy your casts as they are FULL of incredibly insightful and useful information, Thank you !! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry
So on point about the gooseberry and I have noticed that about a few other descriptors that people use. When participating in blind tasting groups, people often will use a descriptor of something they never tried or smelled before, I find that extremely weird. lol. I am from Brazil and we have a lot of tropical fruits, I have eaten and smelled starfruit and I love it, but I am always afraid to use it because it's never on a descriptor grid. There's also a fruit called pitanga, which it translates to cherry, but to me is so different, and I am always hesitant to use it.
I know exactly what you mean. I grew up in a Cuban-American home in a largely Mexican-American neighborhood, and I always want to reach for descriptors that make sense for me because of what I ate and drank growing up but that aren't part of standard tasting grids, and I used to struggle to make sense out of descriptors like "bramble" and "tomato leaf" that were just not part of my experience. Thanks for the comment. Cheers!
I gotta shoot in another "What to try"! SB from Austria, Südsteiermark, is probably the most concentrated expression I have ever tasted. Absolutely recommend people checking it out, as SB tend to be very solid and similar in style around the world. (Nothing wrong with that!) Definitely a mind blowing experience if you think you know the grape by now. Yellow stonefruit meets green apple, blackcurrant leaves, lemon and tropical citrus fruits, dry rock components and summery floral notes! High intensity!! Oh how I wish I had a glass right now 😅...
I really appreciate that perspective on Austrian SB, because it isn't something that comes up on my radar. It's great to have a European sensei to point me to all of the stuff I'm missing because I'm half a hemisphere away. Can't wait to see the cast. Cheers!
The Unknown Winecaster Australian major SB production probably under Adelaide hill , and Margaret river. Something was happening in Tasmania in the past 4 years , they get some fascinating SB too
Great cast. Thanks. Could you please do one on bacchus grape? It's starting to look like they will be the signature grape here in the UK but not a lot is known about them.
Bacchus sounds interesting. It's a relatively new grape and there's not a ton out there about it, so any cast would be brief, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi, new subscriber here! Thanks for all the great info. My videos are more "infotainment" style, but it's great to know of a resource like this. Cheers!
Your videos are really the best format for my WSET exam preparation, thanks again for all your great work ! If Fumé blanc is less used than before, do you think it is mostly used by producers who keep doing malolactic fermentation ?
Hi. Thanks and good luck on the WSET! Thanks for the question, too. Though the name isn't as popular as it used to be in the '80s and 90s, say, my impression is that if a wine-literate consumer sees "Fumé Blanc" on a label, the working assumption he or she will make is that it'll have some oak and maybe some malo (or at least that they should check with whoever they're buying it from), and I think a lot of producers have the same impression, so when they put FB on the label, it's with the understanding that a buyer will see that as an indication of oak. That said, there are wines labeled FB that don't undergo those treatments. Sometimes the FB name is a holdover from earlier vintages when the wine was treated with oak and then the producer changed styles while holding on to the name so as not to confuse his customers; sometimes for other reasons. Also, lots of oak-treated Sauv Blancs don't use the FB name. One of my favorites, Merry Edwards Russian River SB, is fermented and aged in oak (usually about 20% new French) and undergoes twice weekly bâtonnage (but no malo) and it's really rich and full-bodied but you won't see the words Fumé Blanc anywhere on the label.
Hi there , great cast as usual , but one thing :) .. South Africa part , i would rather put Constantia and Elgin regions infront Stellenbosch , they are much more famous regarding Sauvignon Blanc .
On the topic of gooseberries and having it being one of the most used descriptors while most people never tasting it, I wish this was something that WSET would address. I would love, if part of the course, they would have a class where we tasted gooseberries, passionfruit, starfruit, and some of the other fruits/flavors that most people aren't accustomed to. I feel that just saying 'gooseberry' when tasting a SB but not really knowing what it is, kind of defeats the purpose of truly mastering the knowledge of that varietal. And I've tasted gooseberry before (thank you Whole Foods) but still, it's not always easy for everyone to find. (PS, I can live without smelling/tasting cat pee lol)
I'm more interested in mystery of Sauvignon Vert which probably came from Bordeaux .Italian friulano is called Sauvignon friulano .Aromatic profile is similar so that why I@m so interested of origin . .I'm really confused Tokay Friulano and Sauvignon
I'm not familiar with the term "non 46 AVA," so not sure exactly what you mean. The only American SB's I've been able to sample have been from CA, WA and OR -- the one from Oregon, Leah Jorgensen Cellars in the Rogue Valley, was very good. I know that Arizona SB is produced (there's even one winery that adds hops to their SB), but SB does best in a cool climate and in Arizona that would be connected to altitude (the winery that hops their SB, Fire Mountain Winery, for example, is in Cottonwood, which is at around 3300 feet). I would be curious to try one, too.
Orange gooseberries? Those looked nothing like gooseberries. You called them Cape gooseberries, which makes me think they're a totally different fruit. Gooseberries are normally green, sometimes purple or red, quite hairy and oval shaped. Nothing like the fruit pictured. I would be interested to taste what you show and see if it bears any connection with typical Sauv Blanc flavour. True gooseberry certainly does!
These are NOT the gooseberries that Jancis Robinson would have been thinking of. The botanical name you want is Ribes uva-crispa or the European gooseberry. Please correct this. I am a highly qualified taster and wine assessor.
I am not sure, but those berries looked like ground cherries, not gooseberries.
You're right! I did some checking, and golden cape gooseberries are not, it turns out, true gooseberries. Well, dang. I learn something new everyday, I suppose. Looks like I'll have to hunt down some legit gooseberries and see how they stack up as a SB descriptor. Thanks for keeping me honest! Cheers!
@@TheUnknownWinecaster I have always thought that gooseberries were a great descriptor because they have those green flavors of methoxypyrazines as sav blancs even though gooseberries don't have a particular 'gooseberry' flavor that sets them apart like lychees per se.
I love your casts and in my opinion these the most professional, tasteful, respectful and informative wine-education videos available and I applaud you for this. At SET Level 3 we need someone like you to talk to us in an adult way, history, geography, culture included. You respect your audience. On the SB video, just one comment from me: what you are referring to as 'gooseberry' on the picture in your video is Physalis (a fruit native of Peru), nothing to do with the European or Northern Africa species of gooseberry Ribes uva-crispa , which is green in colour, slightly hairy, large grapes, highly acidic and certainly not exotic as Physalis. This what my European tutors are referring to as the SB 'gooseberry' aroma and flavour, and I agree with them. Perhaps this is where the confusion comes from. I pray you have the energy to continue publishing your wine casts, they are INSPIRING. Thank you.
New Zealand took the top spot from 2017, and still growing.
I am hoping more producers start to focus on quality over quantity.
New Zealand is the leader in producing quality Sauvignon Blanc as far as I'm concerned .I always make it a point to make sure NZ is the region it's coming from when I shop
Thank you so much for Winecasts! I am a great fan and look forward to each new upload. Thank you for your time and passion, and humor! ;-) Very helpful and well done! Cheers!
I should add a request for more of Italy as I am very intrigued by the diversity and versatility that little boot offers! Lol. Thanks again!
Thanks for the compliment! I'm glad they're helpful and I appreciate your watching and commenting. Thanks again!
I've got Italy on the brain, too. Probably Sicily, Tuscany and the Piedmont will be the next ones, though I'm not sure when -- but soon, I hope.
Just recently discovered your channel and am really enjoying it...so much detailed information about the regions and varietals...thank you for your hard work and time that goes into these videos. 👍🏼 having grown up in the UK I can confirm that the gooseberries you have sampled and not the same as the European gooseberries that we find in our British hedgerows, you may want to taste the European gooseberries to compare it better with the SVB profile. Also..another comment below suggested trying the Bacchus variety....would love to see your comments on that...I feel that british wine is a relatively hidden gem that deserves more attention. Once again, thanks for the great content!
As usual, brilliant!
Thanks for the kind words!
In Poland, where I used to live, gooseberries are very popular in the summer. And you know what? This is exactly how most of SB taste like! :)
Gooseberries are hard to find on the West Coast of the United States where I live. Most of my experience with the flavor has been through jams and jellies. I think there is an affinity between gooseberry and Sauv Blanc; I just think it's interesting that so many people use the descriptor when they have little or no practical experience with gooseberries. Cheers!
Ha ha pipi du chat - it is in my Le Nez du Vin aroma kit under black currant leaf - another one of those things that not many people have ever experienced. Love your videos
Excellent channel and at 8:11 East Asia doesn't include Thailand, one of ten countries in Southeast Asia.
I like New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs. You get deeper citrus flavors .
I would also try Pinot Grigios once in awhile .Not a fan of red wine as they tend to be too sweet for my liking
Thank you so much for the videos. It helps me a lot in learning more about Sauvignon Blanc. One thing I would like to point out is the gooseberry you show in the video is actually cape gooseberry. In my opinion, cape gooseberries are sweeter, taste of tropical fruits (think maybe a cross between mango and blueberry) and have seeds that are smaller (akin to those of figs). Gooseberries, on the other hand, are not enclosed in calyx, are green when unripe and red with visible green veins when ripe, can be quite sour and have flavours of blueberry and "greens" like grass/leaf. I think this might be the reason why Sauvignon blac is said to have flavours of gooseberry (due to grass flavour). The skins of gooseberries are quite thick and the seeds are larger. They are very tannic and produce a very chalky sensation on your tongue. Gooseberries are sadly not my favourite fruit...
edit: I just noticed that another comentator had already pointed this out.
I'm quite new on my own personal wine journey ,a recent subscriber and especially new to the world of white wines. As it happens I just drank a bottle of white that is labeled a Sauvignon ("de la Renaissance") - Val de Loire IGP on the bottle.
I obviously assumed it to be a Sauvignon Blanc since the white seemed implied by its colour. But after binge watching most of your videos I realised that there are lots of blends or even related grapes with often even similarly sounding names so it can be dangerous to make assumptions as an inexperienced wine drinker.
Furthermore I keep a list of all the wine bottles I bought to this day to better help me locate my personal preferences. Looking back I now realise that I focused on the completely wrong things on the label. Many of the names were not only blends but from what I can tell completely made up to sell better in foreign markets. I also failed to write down the precise region from where the grapes originated if it was even listed.
So thanks a lot for all the educative work you do on this channel!
~ Mat from German.
Thank you for the feedback, and I'm glad that the videos are helpful. I think keeping a list is a great idea, as i can think of a number of times that I swore I wouldn't forget this or that bottle that I particularly enjoyed only to be unable to remember it later. Cheers!
This videos are awesome. Mind if I create a playlist for them on my channel and share them more folks?
Please do, and thank you for the compliment! I like your channel, too (stumbled across it from a comment you left on Hillbilly Wine 101's most recent vid.). Just subscribed and dropped you into my featured channels on my home page; hopefully, that'll send some folks your way. Cheers!
Absolutely! Thanks!
Just a heads up , if you taste Gooseberries from Europe or Britain that is maybe the flavor people are describing as they are tart and high acid berries that are generally sweetened before use . Really enjoy your casts as they are FULL of incredibly insightful and useful information, Thank you !! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooseberry
Thanks for that insight and for the link! Cheers!
So on point about the gooseberry and I have noticed that about a few other descriptors that people use. When participating in blind tasting groups, people often will use a descriptor of something they never tried or smelled before, I find that extremely weird. lol. I am from Brazil and we have a lot of tropical fruits, I have eaten and smelled starfruit and I love it, but I am always afraid to use it because it's never on a descriptor grid. There's also a fruit called pitanga, which it translates to cherry, but to me is so different, and I am always hesitant to use it.
I know exactly what you mean. I grew up in a Cuban-American home in a largely Mexican-American neighborhood, and I always want to reach for descriptors that make sense for me because of what I ate and drank growing up but that aren't part of standard tasting grids, and I used to struggle to make sense out of descriptors like "bramble" and "tomato leaf" that were just not part of my experience. Thanks for the comment. Cheers!
I miss u + sense of humor ;)..and hope (u ll read this) that ull be back soon! 👍
I gotta shoot in another "What to try"! SB from Austria, Südsteiermark, is probably the most concentrated expression I have ever tasted. Absolutely recommend people checking it out, as SB tend to be very solid and similar in style around the world. (Nothing wrong with that!) Definitely a mind blowing experience if you think you know the grape by now. Yellow stonefruit meets green apple, blackcurrant leaves, lemon and tropical citrus fruits, dry rock components and summery floral notes! High intensity!! Oh how I wish I had a glass right now 😅...
I really appreciate that perspective on Austrian SB, because it isn't something that comes up on my radar. It's great to have a European sensei to point me to all of the stuff I'm missing because I'm half a hemisphere away. Can't wait to see the cast. Cheers!
The Unknown Winecaster Australian major SB production probably under Adelaide hill , and Margaret river. Something was happening in Tasmania in the past 4 years , they get some fascinating SB too
Great cast. Thanks.
Could you please do one on bacchus grape? It's starting to look like they will be the signature grape here in the UK but not a lot is known about them.
Bacchus sounds interesting. It's a relatively new grape and there's not a ton out there about it, so any cast would be brief, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi, new subscriber here! Thanks for all the great info. My videos are more "infotainment" style, but it's great to know of a resource like this. Cheers!
Hey, I loves me some good infotainment, so rock on and consider me your newest subscriber! Cheers!
Thank you so much!! Cheers! 🍷
Your videos are really the best format for my WSET exam preparation, thanks again for all your great work !
If Fumé blanc is less used than before, do you think it is mostly used by producers who keep doing malolactic fermentation ?
Hi. Thanks and good luck on the WSET! Thanks for the question, too. Though the name isn't as popular as it used to be in the '80s and 90s, say, my impression is that if a wine-literate consumer sees "Fumé Blanc" on a label, the working assumption he or she will make is that it'll have some oak and maybe some malo (or at least that they should check with whoever they're buying it from), and I think a lot of producers have the same impression, so when they put FB on the label, it's with the understanding that a buyer will see that as an indication of oak. That said, there are wines labeled FB that don't undergo those treatments. Sometimes the FB name is a holdover from earlier vintages when the wine was treated with oak and then the producer changed styles while holding on to the name so as not to confuse his customers; sometimes for other reasons. Also, lots of oak-treated Sauv Blancs don't use the FB name. One of my favorites, Merry Edwards Russian River SB, is fermented and aged in oak (usually about 20% new French) and undergoes twice weekly bâtonnage (but no malo) and it's really rich and full-bodied but you won't see the words Fumé Blanc anywhere on the label.
Thank you for your detailed answer, as detailed as your winecasts :-)
I will try to find your favorite "Merry Edwards" SB here in Quebec!
Hi there , great cast as usual , but one thing :) .. South Africa part , i would rather put Constantia and Elgin regions infront Stellenbosch , they are much more famous regarding Sauvignon Blanc .
cape gooseberry/groundcherry are not even related to actual gooseberry. The cape gooseberry has a flavor that is reminiscent of gooseberry.
On the topic of gooseberries and having it being one of the most used descriptors while most people never tasting it, I wish this was something that WSET would address. I would love, if part of the course, they would have a class where we tasted gooseberries, passionfruit, starfruit, and some of the other fruits/flavors that most people aren't accustomed to. I feel that just saying 'gooseberry' when tasting a SB but not really knowing what it is, kind of defeats the purpose of truly mastering the knowledge of that varietal. And I've tasted gooseberry before (thank you Whole Foods) but still, it's not always easy for everyone to find. (PS, I can live without smelling/tasting cat pee lol)
Lovely
There is a green gooseberry which is more akin to the Sav BLanc flavour and acidity.
I'm more interested in mystery of Sauvignon Vert which probably came from Bordeaux .Italian friulano is called Sauvignon friulano .Aromatic profile is similar so that why I@m so interested of origin .
.I'm really confused Tokay Friulano and Sauvignon
😮 wow
What about non 46 AVA SB in the states , I never tried that before , like Arizona SB .
I'm not familiar with the term "non 46 AVA," so not sure exactly what you mean. The only American SB's I've been able to sample have been from CA, WA and OR -- the one from Oregon, Leah Jorgensen Cellars in the Rogue Valley, was very good. I know that Arizona SB is produced (there's even one winery that adds hops to their SB), but SB does best in a cool climate and in Arizona that would be connected to altitude (the winery that hops their SB, Fire Mountain Winery, for example, is in Cottonwood, which is at around 3300 feet). I would be curious to try one, too.
La Perriere Megalithe
Orange gooseberries? Those looked nothing like gooseberries. You called them Cape gooseberries, which makes me think they're a totally different fruit. Gooseberries are normally green, sometimes purple or red, quite hairy and oval shaped. Nothing like the fruit pictured. I would be interested to taste what you show and see if it bears any connection with typical Sauv Blanc flavour. True gooseberry certainly does!
These are NOT the gooseberries that Jancis Robinson would have been thinking of. The botanical name you want is Ribes uva-crispa or the European gooseberry. Please correct this. I am a highly qualified taster and wine assessor.
Why can't anyone pronounce Sauvignon Blanc properly?