Serendipitous Wine - 2006 Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc

As I'm entering Ben & Jerry's at the corner of Haight and Ashberry in San Francisco, I hear this vaquely English- sounding accent coming from this short pert redhead, so I asked whether she was from England. "No," she replied, "I'm from New Zealand." What brings you to San Francisco? " I'm selling wine." You're kidding! I write about wine. What wine are you selling? "Whitehaven." About this time along comes a tall lanky gentleman with a slight limp and a bloody knee. "This is Simon. We were hiking up around the Randall Museum on Twin Peaks and he tripped." Now I know all about tripping from my recent trip on the patio at Ciao Bella in Seattle. So Sue and I worked on getting Simon all bandaged up. Sue White told me that they produce about 100,000 cases of wine and that they have a distributor in the U.S. She gave me her card and we went our separate ways.

A few weeks later, as I'm entering the QFC supermarket in University Village, I spy an end display of wine in the produce department of all places, so I check it out. Sure enough, there on the white label it says "Whitehaven." Not only that, but the price is supposedly reduced from $23 to $13. Who could resist, even though I generally don't like Sauvignon Blanc? So I called up my friends Carol and Sam who love Sauvignon Blanc to see if I could come over and crack open the bottle with them right away. But, alas, they were away on their annual sojourn in the San Juan Islands.

I couldn't wait to taste my newly acquired Whitehaven, so after appropriate chilling, I did something I rarely do , I opened the bottle just to taste it. Thankfully for me, the 2006 Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc had little or none of that grapefruit flavor that turns me away from Sauvognon Blanc. Little of the grassiness that I like, too. I was blow away - fresh, crisp, refreshing, dry, slightly tart with a hint of lemon. Dryer, cleaner, purer than any Sauvignon I've had before, this diamond reminded me of the best Muscadets I had in France and the best Entre-Deux- Mers I've had with oysters. If you are a Sauvignon Blanc lover, this might not be the wine for you, but if you want a laser beam of pure "ice," this is the wine for you. Great with oysters, also just by itself, if you like really dry wine.