If you can’t beat ‘em – stick ‘em in oak.

At least that seems to be the approach for some Australian producers of sauvignon blanc.

Faced with the power-packed fruit bombs from Marlborough, it appears many Australian producers have decided the best way to compete with their trans-Tasman rivals is to play a different game altogether. So it’s back to the future with a revival of oak, skins and lees.

Wine show judges assessed nearly 700 Australian sauvignon blanc exhibits last year across 330 individual labels.

Blending old and new

Our list of the top 20 shows four of the top six all had an oak influence – either in the form of partial barrel fermentation or maturation. Some also had some skin and lees contact.

It’s not quite old-school fume. The winemaking notes of the six labels we identified with oak in our Top 20 mostly showed only a portion of the wines were oak-influenced before being blended with more modern methods of sauvignon production - temperature controlled fermentation in steel, aromatic yeasts, etc.

Critics seem to like the hybrid approach with its resulting texture and complexity. “I wish more producers would fiddle around with [sauvignon blanc]” sighed one reviewer of a label vinified with skin contact.

No sauvvy bullet

Even so, tricking up savvy with a log’o’wood is not a sure-fire way to win wine show bling.

Of the six labels to win a trophy last year, only half admitted to an oak influence. The Adelaide Hills label that topped our 2025 list was unoaked.

Australian sauvignon blanc has typically been associated with the Adelaide Hills or Western Australia.

The latter was more prevalent this year with eight of the Top 20 compared with just two from the Adelaide Hills. The rest came from a variety of regions spanning Tasmania (just one), Victoria, NSW, Coonawarra and irrigated inland regions.

‘My way’ in WA

Fun fact: all but one of the tricked-up sauvignon blancs in our top 20 list came from WA. That seems about right for a state that’s historically forged its own path with sauvignon blanc.

For many years WA has been the last redoubt of the grape’s blend with semillon. It’s a traditional Bordeaux recipe but is now considered a somewhat idiosyncratic regional preference in Australia and claims only a small segment of the national wine pool.

If the sandgropers ever achieve their long-standing but latent desire to secede, perhaps they will toast their independence with their latest twist on this popular variety.

Our list of Australia’s top sauvignon blancs of 2025 follows:

The full list of the top 20 Australian Sauvignon Blancs of 2025 is available below to our subscribers

Read more

Aussies called it the “sauvalanche” – a tidal wave of pungent, grassy and tropical wines from New Zealand that swept aside Australians’ previous white wine preference for chardonnay and riesling.

Before long, New Zealand sauvignon blanc had established itself as the single biggest selling varietal wine in Australia. It also became the country’s calling card world-wide.

And why not? NZ sauvignon blanc’s powerful palate of passionfruit, guava, pineapple and citrus sits on a mouthwatering backbone of acid that begs to be drunk on a hot summer’s day. It’s a wine that wears its heart on a sleeve – immediately intelligible to anyone who’s ever walked into a fruit stall – and its acidity makes it a great food companion.

In-Sancerre Sauvants

Of course, this apparent simplicity has since led to its lofty dismissal by the wine intelligentsia. Transfixed by their own scintillating thoughts about the minutiae of obscure labels made in tiny quantities, the high priests of wine have turned on the kiwi upstart. Drink sauvignon blanc if you must, so goes the groupthink, but only if it’s a Sancerre. Or oaked. Or leesy. Or blended with something else.

It was inevitable that the massive popularity of NZ sauvignon blanc would sow the seeds of - if not its demise - a certain familiarity. NZ Wine, which represents kiwi winegrowers, reported subdued demand for the 2025 vintage. Weather conditions “delivered a crop that would have significantly exceeded any previous vintage in New Zealand’s history”, they told members.

However, a dispiriting cocktail of declining domestic sales, tougher export markets and unfavourable trends such as declining alcohol consumption meant that many wineries tore up their supply contracts in 2025. Growers left fruit hanging for the first time in many years. This has continued in 2026 with growers increasingly pulling up vines or cutting them back to limit their productivity.

Big fish, small pond

That’s a tough gig for a country which is pretty much a one-trick pony when it comes to wine. Sauvignon blanc accounts for more than two-thirds of NZ’s vineyard area and produces 78 per cent of the country’s total crush. Sauvignon blanc also made up nearly 90 per cent all of NZ’s wine exports by volume – 251 million litres – with most of it going to Australia, the UK and the USA.

And Marlborough is its epicentre. All but one-eighth of NZ’s sauvignon blanc is planted in Marlborough and the grape dwarfs the next biggest variety in the area, pinot noir, by 10:1.

All of which means it’s no surprise that Marlborough dominated our list of top NZ Sauvignon Blancs. Only one of the top 20 came from elsewhere – Martinborough – although that wine did round out the top five.

Judges assessed 585 NZ sauvignon blanc exhibits last year across 376 individual labels. They awarded 102 gold medals from a total of 582 with perhaps the largest proportion of silver medals of any class.

Our list of New Zealand’s Top 20 Sauvignon blancs of 2025 follows:

Share mattsays.com

Read more