White Grape · Friuli Venezia Giulia

Sauvignon Blanc

Italy's loudest green-fruited white: a French incomer that found its sharpest voice on the marl hills of Friuli and the cold slopes of Alto Adige.

Sauvignon Blanc is the sharp, green-scented white behind Friuli's Collio and Isonzo bottlings. It is also the grape behind Alto Adige's mountain Sauvignon. And it leads the coastal Tuscan whites, such as Ornellaia's Poggio alle Gazze. A French native, it was registered in Italy in 1970. Close to a third of its Italian vines now grow in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

Grape guide

Quick Facts

Style: White
Regions: Friuli Venezia Giulia Trentino-Alto Adige Tuscany
Key Denominations: Alto Adige/SüdtirolDOC RosazzoDOCG
Typical ABV: Fairly Strong (12-14%)
Also known as: Sauvignon
Glass: Sauvignon Blanc Glass

Bottles live now

UK retailers

Denominations

Also known as

Same grape, many labels

Sauvignon

The bare name on most Collio, Isonzo and Alto Adige labels. It is Sauvignon Blanc, bottled dry and unblended, never a red.

Sauvignon Blanc

The full international name, seen more on Bolgheri and export labels than in Friuli.

Sauvignonasse

A separate variety, once called Tocai and now Friulano, long muddled with true Sauvignon in Friuli. Different grape, softer and rounder wine.

The anchor fact: On an Italian label the single word "Sauvignon" almost always means Sauvignon Blanc, not Cabernet Sauvignon: Friuli and Alto Adige drop the "Blanc" by custom.

Taste · Where it sits

What it’s actually like in the glass

Forget scores out of five. Here’s Sauvignon Blanc described against grapes you already know.

BodyLightly built

FeatherweightBroad

Leaner than a lees-rested Bolgheri blend, fuller than Arneis; Alto Adige mountain fruit keeps it slender, while coastal Poggio alle Gazze carries more flesh.

TanninSkin-free, bar the Carso outliers

NoneGrippy

Next to nothing in a steel-made Collio Sauvignon; only Carso skin-contact bottlings such as Radikon trade freshness for a tannic, tea-like pull.

AcidityRacing

SoftPiercing

Sharper than Friulano off the same Collio ponca and knife-like in Isonzo; this thiol-charged acidity is what lets Sauvignon read as nettle and grapefruit rather than orchard fruit.

Fruit-sweetnessBone dry, green-fruited

Bone drySweet

Fermented out to dryness across Friuli and Alto Adige; the sweetness you sense is elderflower and passion-fruit perfume, not sugar, unlike the botrytis Sauternes made from the same grape.

Key flavours

Gooseberry

Sauvignon's calling card, released by the thiols in its thin skins; sharper and greener in cool Collio fruit than in riper coastal Tuscan bottlings.

Nettles

The ortiche note Italian tasters prize in Friuli Sauvignon, a stinging herbal edge that fades if the grapes hang a few days too long.

Elderflower

A high floral top note, sambuco in Italian, most vivid in Alto Adige's cold-night fruit; it is the perfume people mistake for sweetness.

Grapefruit

Pink-pith bitterness rather than orchard sweetness, the citrus that carries Sauvignon's saline, mineral Collio style.

Lime

A taut green-citrus streak, closer to lime leaf than juice, that keeps Isonzo Sauvignon vertical and cutting.

Green pepper

The pyrazine peperone-verde note of early-picked fruit; a marker of cool sites and restraint, not a fault, in mountain Sauvignon.

White peach

The riper face that surfaces on warm Isonzo gravels and the Tuscan coast, where sun softens the green into stone fruit.

Racy · Crisp Round · Soft Light-bodied Bold · Full Chardonnay Glera Vermentino Pinot Grigio Garganega Carricante

Sauvignon Blanc

The map

Sauvignon Blanc is light to medium, racy, high acidity, mapped against other white grapes you can buy. The closer a grape sits, the more its weight and freshness resemble Sauvignon Blanc.

Sauvignon Blanclight to medium, racy, high acidity

Chardonnayfuller, far rounder

Glerarounder

Vermentinorounder

Pinot Grigiorounder

Garganegarounder

Carricantefuller, rounder

Is this for you?

An honest gut-check

Reach for it when…

A bold red that just works

You want the loudest, greenest aromatics in Italian white wine: nettle, box, gooseberry and cut grass.
A young, cold Collio or Alto Adige bottling for goat cheese, asparagus or sea bass.
Acidity sharp enough to scythe through fried and herb-heavy plates.

Maybe skip it if…

You’re after something else tonight

You prefer the quiet, nutty restraint of Soave's Garganega or a lees-broad Chardonnay.
Pyrazine green-pepper and tomato-leaf notes read as underripe to you.
You are chasing oak and cellar age; most Italian Sauvignon is built for its first three years.

Serving guide

Pour it at its best

Serve at

10-12°C

Pour it at 10 to 12C: colder mutes the thiols that make Collio Sauvignon smell of elderflower and grapefruit.

Decant

No decant. Air flattens the volatile nettle-and-box top note within minutes.

Glass

Sauvignon Blanc Glass

A narrower white bowl, its own Sauvignon Blanc glass, funnels the aromatics that a broad red glass would scatter.

Drink within

3-5 days

Drink Friuli and Alto Adige bottlings inside three years while the green fruit is electric.

Cellar

Up to 5 years

Only Bolgheri blends and Carso skin-contact Sauvignon reward five years or more; steel varietals fade.

On the table

What to eat with Sauvignon Blanc

Start with the home-table matches that made the grape, then browse the full cuisine library.

The textbook match

Steamed sea bass

Isonzo Sauvignon's lime-and-nettle cut lifts delicate white fish without the weight a Chardonnay would drop on it.

Green meets green

Insalata Caprese

Sauvignon's tomato-leaf and elderflower notes chime with basil and fresh tomato, while its acidity resets the mozzarella between bites.

Salt and flint

Oysters

A steel Collio Sauvignon grown on ponca marl answers brine with grapefruit and a saline, stony snap.

Herb on herb

Trofie al pesto

The wine's cut-grass streak runs with basil and pine nut, and its high Friulian acidity slices the pesto's oil.

Browse every pairing

6 retailers

£42.40

View Wine

Why this one: Ornellaia's Bolgheri white is roughly half Sauvignon, given lees and a breath of oak: the coastal, riper face of the grape, peach and fennel over the green.

12 of 49 bottles

6 retailers

Ornellaia Poggio alle Gazze dell'Ornellaia

Toscana

6 retailers

£42.40

View Wine

4 retailers

2 retailers

Venezia Giulia IGT Bianco Les Enfants Villa Russiz

Venezia Giulia

2 retailers

£16.50

View Wine

Denominations

Where it earns a name on the label

The appellations where Sauvignon Blanc plays a starring role.

Alto Adige/SüdtirolDOC RosazzoDOCG

Where it grows

The places it calls home

Friuli Venezia Giulia

Italy's white-wine heartland, where Friulano, Ribolla Gialla and skin-contact orange wines meet alpine air, Adriatic light and the cooking of San Daniele and Read more

320 wines · 18 denominations

Trentino-Alto Adige

Italy's alpine wine country: Teroldego from the Piana Rotaliana, Trento DOC sparklers raised on dolomitic limestone, and Alto Adige whites perfumed by glacial Read more

371 wines · 12 denominations

Tuscany

From galestro hills in Chianti Classico to the single Brunello rise of Montalcino and the sea-facing Cabernets of Bolgheri, Tuscany is Italian wine's stage in Read more

1369 wines · 60 denominations

The terroir

Sauvignon Blanc reached Italy in the nineteenth century and was written into the national register in 1970; today Friuli-Venezia Giulia holds close to a third of the country's plantings. Where it grows rewrites how it tastes.

Collio & Colli Orientali

Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Marl-and-sandstone ponca hills give the tautest, flintiest Italian Sauvignon: nettle and grapefruit over stone.

Alto Adige

Terlano to Appiano

High-altitude vineyards and cold nights push the aromatics to a piercing elderflower-and-box intensity.

Bolgheri & the Tuscan coast

Tuscany

Maritime warmth and a touch of oak broaden the grape into peach, fennel and white flowers, often blended.

Editorial

About Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc is a French native. It was born on the marl and gravel of the Loire Valley and Bordeaux, where its name traces to sauvage, or wild. Genetic work catalogued by the VIVC makes it an offspring of Savagnin. Crossed with Cabernet Franc, it is also the parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. It reached Italy in the nineteenth century, and it entered the national vine register in 1970.

In Friuli the label often just says Sauvignon; the Blanc is left off because everyone on the Collio knows which grape earned the hill.

Italian labelling custom

Its Italian home is Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The region holds close to a third of the country's plantings. On the ponca marls of the Collio and Colli Orientali it makes the tautest, flintiest Sauvignon in Italy. It has long shared the hill with Friulano. That grape was once muddled with Sauvignonasse, Sauvignon's own green-berried form. Labels here often read simply Sauvignon.

In Alto Adige and neighbouring Trentino, high vineyards and cold nights sharpen the aromas. They reach a piercing elderflower and nettle intensity. Here the grape shares the cellar with Pinot Bianco and Chardonnay. Growers such as San Michele Appiano set the mountain benchmark.

On the Tuscan coast, warmth and a touch of oak broaden the grape. It turns to peach and fennel. The most famous example is Ornellaia's Poggio alle Gazze, which is roughly half Sauvignon. At the other extreme, Carso growers like Radikon ferment it on its skins into an orange wine. Our guide to how orange wine is made covers the method. From steel-fresh to skin-fermented, few white grapes shift so far across one country.

Good to know

Frequently asked

Yes. On Italian labels the grape is usually written just "Sauvignon". That is true above all in Friuli and Alto Adige. It always means Sauvignon Blanc, the dry white, and never Cabernet Sauvignon.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia grows close to a third of Italy's Sauvignon. The Collio and Colli Orientali hills are its benchmark. Alto Adige makes a piercing mountain style. Coastal Bolgheri makes a rounder, blended one.

Expect high acidity and aromas of gooseberry, nettle, elderflower and grapefruit. The edge is green and herbal. Italian versions sit between the flinty restraint of the Loire and the tropical loudness of New Zealand.

Its cutting acidity suits steamed sea bass, oysters, insalata Caprese and trofie al pesto. Its tomato-leaf and herb notes also make it a natural match for basil, asparagus and fresh goat cheese.

Most is built to drink young and cold. Drink it within about three years, while the green fruit is still vivid. Only Bolgheri blends and Carso bottlings made on the skins reward five years or more in the cellar.

In Italy, almost always. Friuli and Alto Adige ferment it bone dry. The perfume of elderflower and passion fruit reads as sweetness, but no sugar is left in the wine. Sweet Sauvignon belongs to Bordeaux's noble rot wines, not to Italy.

Explore by style