WTN: Two lovely wines for a change: Beajo & Austrian Sauv Bl

In recent weeks I have mostly had adequate but uninspiring wines. Now I have opened two that I found satisfying.

Sattlerhof Sauvignon Blanc Steirische Klassik STK 2007 - Austria, Südsteiermark,Gamlitz

24,90€; 12,5% abv; 5,8g/l acidity; under a glass stopper. STK is a seal of quality by seven properties in Steiermark (Gross, Lackner-Tinnacher, Neumeister, Erich & Walter Polz, Sattlerhof, Tement and Winkler-Hermaden).

The wine was light as water. The nose is strikingly open and very true to the variety, full of currant aromas, ripe fruit and minerals. But though the aromas are much as I have experienced from the grape elsewhere, this is not Sauvignon in the NZ or Loire paradigm. This is ripe, rich, powerful, heavy and though rather obvious in its charms it remains strangely moreish and drinkable and interesting - though this is a grape I all too often become quickly bored with. It seems to begin in a fruit-forward style, but the acidity kicks in on the mid-palate and it remains mineral and as saliva-inducing as fresh Szechuan peppers! It finishes with a wonderful squirt of lemon that really worked as a component of the arctic char I was eating.

Rich stuff, and this is only the basic Sauvignon they make. The have a range of single vineyards as well (and, I think, some special bottling, too) - and I hope they won't be any more full bodied as that would make them clunky. As a general rule I still dislike the grape, but am happy to find one more rare example that went down well. What I do find a bit annoying is that the price for this basic wine is what one usually pays for the single vineyards elsewhere.

But it is the Gamay that really made my day! I had my second experience with Marcel Lapierre's Vin de Pays des Gaules 2007, mostly from Morgon, but this is a bottling that he makes with also some purchased grapes from outside the
appellation. But it is classic Lapierre in its style: very natural, seemingly light as a feather, racy. The label really says very much about the wine:



Yet the featherweight wine and its irreverent label belies some hidden depths. Though this is a fun, fruity, frolicsome wine it is as classic as I can imagine Morgon: it seems to combine the sensuousness of Burgundy to the game birds' blood of the Rhône but makes a unique personality of the two sides. Fun, and more serious than its surface would suggest.

Nice to hear that the Lapierre is both fun and serious.

Yes, unlike Thevenet and Breton, I've been finding some of the higher cuvees from Lapierre and Foillard to be more serious than fun, like painters who switch from acrylic to oil, so it's nice to hear of one that is more balanced.