World Sauvignon Congress

Today sees the start of the first ever World Congress on Sauvignon Blanc in Graz, Austria. Sauvignon is grown all over the world from its traditional home in the Loire, to Chile and of course New Zealand, whose distinctive style of wine arguably resurected the grapes current popularity worldwide. It is the second most planted white grape variety behind Chardonnay but doesnt seem to have anywhere near the acclaim. This conference aims to give the grape some of the credit it deserves.

Looking through the Congress programme there is a real range of topics and it would be amazing to be there. Not to mention the city of Graz itself which looks like a classic European city. As always though conferences usually throw up many more questions than there are answers. There is such a wide range of presentations some of which are only 20-30 minutes in length, not including time for questions. Surely not long enough to really cover any one topic in depth.

Good news for the blog reading world though, Jamie Goode of Wine Anorak fame, is attending the Congress and should be reporting on the goings-on and all the tastings in his blog here.

And just in case I havent mentioned it to date, Sandihurst will be releasing its first Marlborough Sauvignon on October 1. More on the winemaking aspect to that later.