Story #4 - Sauvignon Blanc: Some Thoughts on Alternatives to White Burgundy
May 21th, 2025 | Alexander Mackh, Co-Founder of Amelie
We live in a time when there is more good wine than ever. Growers are better trained, more thoughtful. Climate has changed things, for better or worse. Farming is slowly improving. And yet, when people speak about great white wine, the conversation still circles back, almost always, to white Burgundy.
So the question is often asked: is there a real alternative?
The short answer is no.
There is no wine that fully replicates the complexity and grace of a great bottle from Meursault or Puligny. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other wines that offer something valuable—sometimes more precise, sometimes more textural, sometimes more immediate. Over time, I’ve found myself coming back again and again to Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire. Not out of protest. Just because it gives me something I don’t find anywhere else.
My first experience of what Sauvignon Blanc could be came from Didier Dagueneau. Like many others, I was struck by the Silex. Not just the wine, but the way it was made—farming that was serious, biodynamic in its core, and not just in its label. Dagueneau managed to take a grape that is so often typecast—sharp, green, overly aromatic—and turn it into something layered, textural, and long.
Moving Forward
After that, my focus shifted. I was still looking for Sauvignon Blanc that had that tension, that texture, that sense of origin. Clos de la Néore came close. Wines that are built not just on acidity but on tactile quality. And I think about these wines often when working on glass shape or thinking about structure—because they demand to be seen not just aromatically but physically.
But these are not wines you open casually. So I kept looking.
The last bottle of Silex I drank was a 2008. It stayed with me: lime peel, smoke, something stony and electric. It didn’t shout. It wasn’t theatrical. It had precision and quiet energy.
Dagueneau’s death in that ultralight crash was not just a tragedy—it left a gap. Not just in the appellation, but in what felt like a moment of clarity in Loire winemaking. His successors continue the work, but that specific voice, that exact pulse, is gone.
Domaine de Bouchot
That’s when I came across Domaine de Bouchot. Antoine is doing things that are, at least to me, worth paying attention to—not because they’re flashy or dogmatic, but because they seem grounded. He works biodynamically. He limits yields—around 55 hl/ha. The vines are planted at high density—7,500 per hectare. Sulfur use is minimal. Fermentations are spontaneous.
Not Better. Just Needed.
I drink a lot of white Burgundy. But sometimes, I want something else. Something cleaner, more direct. Less layered, maybe, but also more focused.
I don’t think Sauvignon Blanc is an answer to Burgundy. It’s not supposed to be. But it can speak just as clearly—just in a different voice. And when the farming is right, and the winemaking quiet, it can move you in ways you didn’t expect.
I think more people should drink wines like this. Not as a substitute, but as a way to keep Burgundy special. Because when we only ever drink what we already love, we dull the experience.
And sometimes, it takes a glass of something else to remember why you fell in love in the first place.