What's the most popular white wine variety in the UK? If you have more than a fleeting interest in the subject, it won't take you long to come up with an answer. Even a Martian teetotaller could stroll into a supermarket and count the bottles of Chardonnay on the shelves. I reckon a quarter of all white wine is made from Chardonnay these days, or says it is on the label.
The number two position is a little harder to divine. My suspicion was that Pinot Grigio, a wine style that confirms the old dictum about no one losing money underestimating public taste, would be the numero due variety. But I was wrong. According to research, our second favourite variety is good old Sauvignon Blanc, a grape whose current growth rate is even greater than Chardonnay's, despite the success of Footballers' Wives.
The marketing people have even coined a term for the people who can't get enough Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. They are known as 'Sauvignon Loyalists'. They are 'career-minded and affluent', and 'more likely to be free of children and in social group A than Chardonnay loyalists'.
Perhaps they should start speed-dating evenings for Sauvignon Blanc drinkers. Imagine the conversation: 'You've got 30 seconds to tell me if this smells of cat's pee or gooseberries or I'm putting a cross against your name.'
It's interesting that Sauvignon should arouse such loyalty. I've always found it an enjoyable enough grape but, to borrow from Dorothy Parker's description of Katharine Hepburn's performance in a Broadway play, it 'runs the whole gamut of flavours from A to B'. Aged white Graves can achieve bottle-aged complexity, but Sauvignon Blanc generally tastes best when it's young, fruity and comparatively uncomplicated. It's a refreshing drink but it is rarely a great wine.
So how does one explain the success of Sauvignon, which has cornered a seven per cent share of the white wine market in the UK? I reckon it's down to a combination of factors: the reliability of the grape, the quality of New Zealand Sauvignon (and the hoo-ha surrounding Cloudy Bay, its most successful Antipodean ambassador) and a run of good to very good vintages in the Loire Valley, Sauvignon's main French base. Throw in some increasingly good Sauvignons from South Africa, Chile, Australia and Hungary and you have a much more diverse and interesting picture than you had even five years ago.
The other good thing about Sauvignon Loyalists is that they will regularly pay £6 plus for a wine to drink at home, which is just as well given the price of examples from the Loire Valley and New Zealand.
This makes them positive spendthrifts in a country where the average price of a bottle of wine is still under £4. They also like 'eating out in restaurants, reading the papers and enjoying relaxed evenings drinking at home'.
I never thought I would admit to this, but Sauvignon Loyalists sound like my kind of people. Which is more than can be said for the millions of consumers who buy Pinot Grigio.
