Light, Fresh, Healthy: The Cuisine of Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc — the farmers’ market wine.
Sauvignon Blanc has its own cuisine—I call it the cuisine of green. The wine vibes with all that is fresh, herbal, citrusy, and light. Of course, some Sauvignon Blanc wines are more food-friendly than others. (Don’t tell the critics!)
SANNA Sauvignon Blanc is our lifestyle wine. Meaning it’s the wine the winemaker made to drink at home every night with his dinner. It’s the tomato wine, the pesto wine, the salad wine. It enhances the flavors of anything you grow in your garden. Is it fresh? Our Sauvignon Blanc loves it. Are you zesting a lemon? Sauvignon Blanc wants to join the party.
Pure and fresh, the wine embodies the kind of understated, restrained elegance that only looks effortless and which requires a master touch to achieve. It would be a mistake to compare it to bigger Napa Valley Sauvignon Blancs that are oaked on lees and coaxed into voluptuousness with residual sugar until they taste like a slice of lemon chiffon pie.
Our wine is meant to be enjoyed with food; it quenches thirst and refreshes the palate. We cold-ferment slowly in stainless steel for a month to capture a wide array of volatile aromatics and complex fruit flavors in a wine that is naturally lower in alcohol (12.5%) and has no additives and zero residual sugar.
The first garden produce of spring and summer seems magical. So is this wine, named for our daughter; Sanna is a Scandinavian name with ancient origins in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, meaning truth, brilliance, the pinnacle or highest point, lily or lotus.
SANNA is the wine we drink through the dark winter to remember spring, what we drink to feel refreshed in the heat of summer, what we share with friends. Here are a few favorite pairings of Sauvignon Blanc and the fresh, healthy foods with which it so naturally aligns.
As always, this Blog post is a work in progress; we’ll add to it from time to time.
Raw Asparagus Salad with Tamarind and Lime, Crispy Paneer Fried in Ghee with Miso Lime Sauce
The star of this meal is the salad, from Ottolenghi’s Flavor; shaving raw asparagus into thin strips brilliantly seems to neutralize sulfur-containing compounds that clash with wine, emphasizing its natural sweetness. When tossed with a minty, sweet and savory dressing and crunchy nuts (plus I added grated Parmesan), the salad is addictively delicious.
As an accompaniment, mild cubes of paneer, an Indian cheese, were crisp-fried in ghee and tossed with my bracingly tart, silky reduction of miso, white wine, lime juice, cream, butter, and fish sauce. (The salad came together quickly, and I wanted a protein side that would, too, so I chose paneer, which doesn’t have the soy estrogens (isoflavones) that work as phyto-endocrine disruptors, wreaking havoc on the metabolism.)
Question: when it comes to pairing wine and food, does acid love acid, or can a bright, acidic wine be too much when paired with tamarind and lime? We found that the acids were like a firm handshake bridging neutral and creamy elements (cheese, cream, ghee) in the dish. Any time I add a hearty handful of green herbs like mint to a dish, or a squeeze of lime, I expect that SANNA Sauvignon Blanc will harmonize with those flavors, since the wine is full of nuanced, bright, green flavors, as well.
Pan-seared Scallops in Jade Sauce
Pan-seared Scallops in Jade Sauce is a delightful fusion dish with Asian flavors from my 1988 copy of Pacific Flavors by Hugh Carpenter. A selling point for me is the recipe’s easy elegance. I adapted the recipe a bit by searing the ginger-rubbed scallops in butter in my cast iron skillet.
To make the sauce, throw a bunch of aromatic stuff into the blender, including spinach, chives, cilantro, basil, and Chinese chili sauce. Puree, along with chicken stock and whipping cream, then bring to a boil in a pan and thicken with cornstarch. I added the fish sauce and a squeeze of agave nectar for good measure.
And there you have it. It’s an easy dish that pleases the eye and palate with its vibrancy. Did I mention that SANNA Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley 2022 is the perfect pairing? The wine’s lemony zestiness vibes with the tender scallops and everything green and herbal. Gosh, that’s good.
Grilled Oysters
Our house specialty is Kristof’s grilled oyster, and at $2/each from our local fishmonger for fresh grilling oysters, he and I will frequently split a dozen (or two) with a little bread and a sliced tomato or grilled vegetables and call it one of the best meals we’ve ever had. His protocol uses either the gas grill or a wood fire in our tiny terracotta pizza oven; the point is to cook un-shucked oysters for about 4 minutes (al dente is what we’re going after) either on the grill or with coals heaped over them. When you let them rest on a platter for a minute or two, they’re easy to open with heat-proof protective gloves and an oyster knife. They’re succulent and steamy.
We then pour on a little melted garlic butter, squeeze some lemon, sprinkle Parmesan, breadcrumbs if you want, optionally some creamed spinach for a deconstructed Rockefeller (why should robber barons have all the fun?) Recently, we ate this hands-on dinner with Jennifer’s parents, and her dad, Richard, said it was one of the top meals of his life. Really, that’s true. You can’t get fresher or better. The nutrient-density of the oyster is well known. It’s a food for life, a food than enhances vitality. Yes, Sauvignon Blanc is as necessary as the lemon.
Green Herb & Quinoa-crusted Sea Bass
The inspiration here comes from Jane Coxwell’s Fresh, Happy, Tasty, a favorite book in my kitchen. In my rushed version of her recipe, you take an enormous piece of sea bass that was vacuum-sealed at Costco and spread it thickly with a mixture of pine nuts, quinoa, garlic, lemon, olive oil, mint, and cilantro, all blended together to a paste. I may have added some tamarind paste. The recipe said to bake in a 450 degree F oven 5 minutes, but I could tell mine would take longer. After 10 minutes, I turned off the heat and left it there while I folded a load of laundry from the dryer. (Make of that what you will.) When I retrieved the fish, it was expertly cooked. Kristof said it was the most perfectly cooked piece of fish he’s ever eaten, so that’s luck for you. Buttery, snow-white flakes of tender sea bass melted under the fork, and the topping was bright and luscious. The next day we tucked cold leftover fish into corn tortillas for tacos and ate the standing up from the back of our car while visiting vineyards. Sauvignon Blanc adores cilantro.
Spaghettini Primavera
Garnishing a fresh and simple Primavera with chopped squash blossoms from the garden. Click on the image for the Instagram Reels video.
Perhaps no dish is as well known as a perfect partner for Sauvignon Blanc as Pasta Primavera; the zesty wine cuts through cream sauce and amplifies the flavors of garden vegetables. Unfortunately, we’ve all had the sort of heavy Primavera that’s made with a brick of cream cheese that smothers the life out of soggy broccoli and carrot bits. This is not that.
Perla Meyers writes about her French recipe for the quintessential springtime pasta in her classic book The Seasonal Kitchen: A Return to Fresh Foods from 1973: “In springtime, in homes and little restaurants where this dish is popular, individual portions of spaghetti are served simply buttered, then topped with 2 or 3 tablespoons of the peas, prosciutto and mushroom mixture, which each person mixes into his own spaghetti.”
I sauteed an onion, along with baby vegetables from my garden, in a whole stick of butter and served the pasta with a shower of Parmesan, black pepper, fresh herbs, and squash blossoms for lunch after a morning working in the garden. Perfection with a glass of our SANNA Sauvignon Blanc.
Perhaps you can’t imagine that anything sauteed in a whole stick of butter should be classified as light, fresh, and healthy, but I would disagree. Good butter like Kerrygold from grassfed cows should be considered a health food for its balanced omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, synergistically combined vitamins A, D, and K-2 for strong bones and teeth, and Wulzen factor, which fights stiffness and calcification in the body. My general practitioner always wants to frame my perfect cholesterol ratio numbers and says I must be the sort of person who’s very good and avoids butter, when it’s just the opposite. I’m quite bad: I eat a lot of butter and drink a lot of wine. This has served me well.
Peanut Sauce Slaw
Warm sun and a cool, salty ocean breeze. That’s how Kristof describes the sensation of enjoying shredded cabbage and chicken slaw dressed with a lime and Thai chile-infused peanut sauce dressing, paired with chilled Sauvignon Blanc. I love a good Thai peanut sauce, and our homemade version comes together quickly, with peanut butter, palm sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, Thai chiles, garlic, and ginger. Citrusy Sauvignon Blanc plays beautifully with the lime juice, creamy peanut butter, and all the fresh vegetables and herbs in the slaw: carrots, red bell peppers, scallions, and cilantro. It’s an easy, fresh meal for a warm day, and if you use a rotisserie chicken, your kitchen stays cool.
Easy Lemon and Ricotta Ravioli
In Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, Pam Anderson has a wonderful recipe for an elegant first course: Butternut Squash Ravioli made with wonton wrappers. You set out the wrappers in pairs and top one wrapper with a tablespoon of filling. Brush the edges with water and cover with the other wrapper, pressing the edges to seal. Drop a few—don’t crowd—in a pot of boiling water and cook three minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon. She serves hers with a drizzle of rosemary oil.
Two ravioli in a dish makes a nice starter for each guest. Kristof and I enjoyed four each for a light dinner. My version has lots of lemon zest and lemon oil mixed into the ricotta, along with green garlic and onion. I sauced mine with a spoonful of hot stock, a few peas and green vegetables, and a dot of pesto.
It’s a match made in heaven with Sauvignon Blanc. But I’m thinking of all the possibilities my summer garden will offer up. Is there any roasted garden vegetable that wouldn’t like this treatment? You could get fancy, press a sage leaf or edible flower into each one, but why? These are lazy garden ravioli.