I think there are good wines to be found through all of those styles. One reservation I have with the riper wines is their maturation ability. The vast majority of these styles still receive acid adjustments, which means the wine doesn't have natural balance. Harvest early and you need to be careful of unripe fruit and harsh acid. Harvest late and the balance becomes an issue: high alcohols and acid additions. Along with a deft hand in the vineyards, the operative word remains "balance".

Dear Christian, coming for Sancerre I have been puzzled to see how the industry has been desperately aiming at physical hard greenness. I know the first reason was to copycat the successful sauvignon from New Zeland where the very cool/cold climate is naturally generating these green balanced compounds. But we all deal with the 34 to 32 parallel, which makes us the equivalent of Tripoli or Tunis! So for years we have been dealing with unripe fruits worked very reductively to offer these pungent greenish flavors. On the other hand the market was opening itself to Sauvignon, making it easily recognisable to the crowds, and enjoyable for social drinks, even with ice cubes in it. As much as all the styles have a reason to be, and a market to serve, this kind of green sauvignon became a standard supported by our own wine and spirit board, praising wines that have been displaying unnatural, or illegal flavours, and rejecting many subtle and elegant sauvignon for their lack of varietal character. It became a huge pressure onto winemakers to deliver this style at the risk of having wine rejected, which means facing the risk of having their employer unhappy, or even doubting the winemaker's capacity. This was a run to hell, and we ended up producing many wines which were caricature of wines, but fitting the W&S board. There is a price to pay. The new markets love caricature wines, it was true for "Fetzer Sundial" type of chardonnay in the 80', with 15g residual and pure vanilla, then it was the 'rosemount shiraz' fashion of the 90', as well very physical, then catpee aspergus Sauvignon hit the scene at the turn of the century. Now we have these cocoa or coffee perfumed wines, the new easily identifiable fashion of physical wines... The great side is that these fashions brought new wine drinkers into the market, but as they get educated, their palate starts to get bored with caricature wines, and aim at more balanced, elegant, drinkable, less aggressive type of wines. It means that we can't sustain the green sauvignon fashion, and none of the former fashion could be sustained. We have been planting sauvignon everywhere, even if places far too warm for this delicate grape. For many of these vines, there is no alternative to technical green reductive winemaking. The ones closer to the sea will be able to produce a riper, fruitier, balanced sauvignon, a sauvignon that can age and improve like chardonnay in the bottle. But these producers will probably have to face the technical committee of the W&S board to have their wine considered. If we want some perennial support for our sauvignon industry we will have to adapt our styles, and then only the good terroirs will shine, even if some winemaker's ego will have to be twisted in the process. So if the industry goes for fruit, flintiness, balance and length, we are on the good direction, as long as our W&S board accepts to update their taste ( the same taste allowing illegal sauvignon to be certified not long ago) and accepts the diversity. And for the farmers who planted sauvignon at the wrong place, but as an opportunity to cash on a fashion, they will have to wait until noble late harvest is back in fashion, because sauvignon shines in this category!