15 Best Sauvignon Blancs for Warm Weather

Whether you're headed to the beach or hosting a backyard cookout, there's a Sauvignon Blanc for that.

Great Sauvignon Blanc can be found around the world, from its traditional appellations in the Loire Valley and Bordeaux to the wildly popular regions scattered around New Zealand and Chile. And in California, many top producers whose fame is built on their red wines are also crafting noteworthy ones, often exploring different sides of the variety through unique farming decisions or novel techniques in the winery. The 15 below represent some of the most intriguing, but this is by no means an exhaustive list. Sauvignon Blanc as a category is hot right now, and as the weather gets warmer, this is the perfect time of year to enjoy them. From budget-friendly bottles to cellar-worthy ones, it’s well worth the effort to explore all that’s available.

2022 Ancient Peaks Sauvignon Blanc Paso Robles

Available for right around $15 and custom made for warm days and casual lunches (preferably by the pool), this bottle proves that well-made domestic Sauvignon Blanc is affordable and widely available. Nectarines and oranges are mouthwatering and flecked with minerality, and a final note of pineapple lends this wine even more layering.

2020 Arkenstone Estate Sauvignon Blanc Howell Mountain, Napa Valley

This blend of 94% Sauvignon Blanc and 4% Semillon is grown in rocky volcanic soil, and aged for 11 months on the lees in a combination of French oak and concrete egg. At $125 per bottle, it doesn’t come cheap, but this is a fantastic interpretation of the variety, with creamy oak-spiced flavors waltzing with notes of fresh and dried springtime flowers, pineapple upside-down cake, baked yellow apples, green melon, and mid-summer stone fruit. It’s dense, rich, and vibrant, making it well-suited to enjoying now or holding onto for another decade or so, which will allow those almond notes to really shine.

2021 Attems Sauvignon Blanc Venezia Giulia, Italy

Northern Italy produces many exciting white wines, and this wallet-friendly one is a delicious example. It’s crunchy with minerality, snappy with lemony acidity, and lively with flavors of yellow apples and a hint of coriander.

2021 Bricoleur Vineyards Kick Ranch Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc

This is produced in a beautifully taut and linear style, reminiscent of Sancerre in its cut grass and blue slate, grapefruit and lemon pith, hard apples and a hint of lemongrass, especially through the slightly saline finish.

2022 Cliff Lede Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley

The noteworthy producer of Cabernet Sauvignon also crafts an excellent Sauvignon Blanc. This one is made in a richer style, blended with 22% Semillon — which lends subtle waxy and floral notes — and is generous with white figs, sweet pears, aniseed, and guava. Allowing the fridge chill to dissipate a bit before serving really allows the complexity of this standout wine to shine through.

2021 Domaine du Salvard Delaille Unique Sauvignon Blanc

Crisp with taut acidity and mineral notes as well as a pleasant grassiness, this wine is appealingly saline and food-friendly, especially through the finish. For all that energy, however, lemon pith and kiwi notes lend it enough upfront friendliness to sip on its own, too.

2022 Dutcher Crossing Winery Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma County

This is an herb-flecked, almost vegetal Sauvignon Blanc. The team here has been brave enough to allow the green notes of shishito and bell peppers to shine through, and the sense of balance they strike with lemon-lime and yellow grapefruit freshness — all lent weight by leesy creaminess — is delicious.

2022 Ehlers Estate Sauvignon Blanc St. Helena, Napa Valley

This terrific Sauvignon Blanc is fermented in stainless steel, concrete, and oak, and the concentration and acidity are remarkable. It vibrates with lemon-lime, verbena, and passionfruit notes, yet there is a core of subtle, spicy savoriness. A finishing whiff of jasmine lingers on the palate.

Related: 15 Best Bottles of Chardonnay Worth Splurging On

2022 Eleven Eleven Beckstoffer Melrose Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc

This is a fascinating Sauvignon Blanc, ripe, rich, and full of density on the palate. Sweet suggestions of cardamom, kiwi, and white fig, and a distinct honeysuckle and honeyed almond note make this a wine of presence and character. 20% new French oak has lent it silkiness and subtle spice, and the core of minerality and lime acidity shines through beautifully.

2019 J. Christopher Über Sauvignon Blanc Chehalem Mountains, Oregon

Estate grown and fermented and aged in acacia, this property, owned by the German legend Ernst Loosen, has crafted a memorable Sauvignon Blanc that threads the needle between power and detail with aplomb. Waxy flavors of preserved lemon peel and cantaloupe find counterpoints in springtime flowers, a pulse of lime acidity, and the spice of lemongrass.

2022 OTU Sauvignon Blanc Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand

Estate grown and influenced by proximity to the sea, this is an intense, concentrated wine with citrus, passionfruit, and gooseberries, as well as a bump of Granny Smiths and padron peppers. This is one of the more assertive Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs on the market, and well worth looking for. For something more familiar, the 2021 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, also from Marlborough, shows a different side of the variety, with vibrant lime and ginger notes, as well as passionfruit and hard apple that linger through the fresh, mouthwatering finish.

2021 Scattered Peaks Fumé Blanc Napa Valley

This Sauvignon Blanc is a classic example of the richer style, yet with an amplified zip of acidity that keeps the nectarine and pink grapefruit flavors vibrant and well-defined. There is a slight perfumed lift of flowers on the finish, and it’s all anchored by a spine of slate-like minerality down the center.

Related: Chilean Sauvignon Blanc Is the Most Interesting Wine of the Year

2020 Taylor Family Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc Yountville, Napa Valley

Concentrated and ripe with gorgeously calibrated acidity lifting flavors of white licorice, lemongrass, papaya, pineapple, verbena, gently baked yellow apples, and a hint of cloves and cinnamon. This is very textural yet not heavy, reminiscent of silk rolling over the palate.

2021 Yalumba The Y Series Sauvignon Blanc South Australia

This velvet-textured expression of Sauvignon Blanc boasts ripe yellow and white peach flavors that are layered with fennel bulb and a suggestion of shiso, all of it finishing with a grace note of kumquat. For well under $15, this is a steal.

2020 Zeitlos Sauvignon Blanc Alexander Valley

Grown in Cougar Ridge vineyard on Stonestreet Estate at between 800 and 1000 feet above sea level, this is absolutely phenomenal. It’s silky and concentrated, with hard pears and yellow apples, coiled lemon acidity, savory minerality, and a hit of slate that brings to mind top-quality Loire, perhaps something from Dagueneau.

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