The nervous, aromatic one. Sauvignon Blanc's piercing gooseberry and boxwood come from methoxypyrazines and thiols the variety wears like a signature; its name — from "sauvage" — points to wild-vine origins somewhere on the Loire–Gironde arc. In the seventeenth century, in some Bordeaux row, it crossed with Cabernet Franc to produce Cabernet Sauvignon.
Long the junior partner behind Sémillon, it has led the white vineyard since the dry-white revival of the 1980s: Entre-deux-Mers built its modern identity on it, and in Pessac-Léognan, barrel-fermented with Sémillon, it makes some of the world's most age-worthy dry whites. In Sauternes a measured dose brings the acid line the nectar needs.