READ OUR FULL REPORT REVIEWING NEARLY 1,000 WINES FROM CHILE HERE

Many wine connoisseurs hold sauvignon blanc in contempt, as outside French territories such as Bordeaux and Loire, this old-hat grape is widely planted and made into often boring wines that are obvious and monotoned, or bland, or acidic and watery.

However, with its good productivity, refreshing aromatics and of course its directness, sauvignon blanc is popular among producers, merchants and consumers, and can be an ideal variety for commodity wines. In Chile, it is also the most planted white grape, closely followed by chardonnay, although sauvignonasse/sauvignon vert can be mixed in some vineyards, making lesser wines with more pungent, dried vegetal characteristics, but sold as sauvignon blanc.

This year we tasted some 900 wines in Santiago, Chile, of which about 90 were sauvignon blancs, and I found the quality of most 2019 Chilean sauvignon blancs as reliable as that of the reds from the country. This should give consumers enough confidence and sense of security to grab bottles straight from the shelves.

Some wines may lack identity with a rather formulaic nose ranging from lemon citrus, grassy asparagus, to passion fruit, guava and gooseberries. But in general, I still found different styles on show, some being more opulent with more tropical fruit and others that underscored purity and subtlety, rendering more positive neutral elements, fineness and minerality to the wine compared with many sauvignon blancs from New Zealand, for example.

At its best, usually when planted in suitable terroir and defined by more precise clonal selection, strict yield control and careful winemaking, Chilean sauvignon blanc can be made into a stunningly serious wine with textural allure, and subtle expressions of zesty and flinty substances on the palate, reminiscent of a good bottle of Sancerre or Pouilly-Fume, but at a third of the price. The cooler regions like Casablanca, San Antonio Valley and the southern Itata and Bio-Bio are good contenders for this style of sauvignon.

Here are some of our great-value picks of the diverse expressions of Chilean sauvignon blancs from the 2018 and 2019 vintages. Spot these bottles for your summer wine stock now!