Intrinsic house spotlight
Official Intrinsic Wine Co: Juan Munoz-Oca, the Ste. Michelle / Columbia Crest winemaker who built this label, on the house style. This is the producer, not a 2020 Sauvignon Blanc vintage film.
The market on this bottle
Wine-Searcher tracks this vintage across the open market. Our slash sits under their published low.
2020 Intrinsic Sauvignon Blanc Columbia Valley, USA
Juan Munoz-Oca's Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc, papaya and wet stone, a ten-dollar glass you can open tonight.
Intrinsic is Juan Munoz-Oca's Washington project out of the Columbia Crest cellar. The 2020 Sauvignon Blanc is 13 percent alcohol, screw cap, grapefruit and white peach with a stony finish, now $10.
Washington Sauvignon Blanc you can actually open
Juan Munoz-Oca grew up in Mendoza, then ran Columbia Crest. Intrinsic is his street-art label for Washington fruit that does not need a speech. The 2020 is tropical, stony, screw-capped, and ten dollars.
The house
Juan Munoz-Oca built Intrinsic inside Ste. Michelle's Columbia Crest cellar. The label is Brooklyn street art. The wine is Columbia Valley.
The wine
100 percent Sauvignon Blanc, 13% ABV, screw cap. Built to drink now: tropical fruit, citrus, and a stony line.
The notes
James Suckling, March 2022: papaya, mango, peach, fresh flowers, medium body, crisp, stony finish. VinePair 90. Winery notes add grapefruit, white peach, lavender, eucalyptus.
The glass
Serve near 48 F. Goat cheese salad or seared scallops. No decant. Open it tonight.
Papaya, peach, and a wet-stone line
James Suckling called the 2020 aromatic with papaya, mango, peach, and fresh flowers, medium-bodied, very crisp, stony finish, drink now, screw cap. The house writes ripe grapefruit, white peach, sweet lime, lavender, white flower, eucalyptus, and minerality like wet stones.
A warm, smaller Washington crop. For this Sauvignon Blanc that meant ripe tropical fruit with enough acid to stay crisp under screw cap.
Papaya, mango, peach, grapefruit, white peach, sweet lime, lavender, eucalyptus.
Medium body, active acidity, 13% ABV, stony mineral line, screw cap.
Stony, fresh. Serve near 48 F. No decant.
Columbia Valley fruit, then a screw cap
Intrinsic is Munoz-Oca's side door on the Columbia Crest bench. The 2020 Sauvignon Blanc is stainless, bright, and sealed to drink now. No oak speech. The stone at the end is the point.
Munoz-Oca came from Mendoza to Paterson as a viticulturist in 2001, then ran Columbia Crest, then became Ste. Michelle's chief winemaker. Intrinsic was the playful label: street-art capsule, Washington fruit, a bottle meant for a table not a lecture.
Serve near 48 F. A white-wine glass. Goat cheese or scallops. The 2020 is in its drinking window now.
From Mendoza to the Columbia River
Munoz-Oca learned wine from his grandfather in Argentina. Then he made Washington his cellar.
Juan Munoz-Oca studied in Mendoza, worked harvests in Australia, France, and Spain, then followed a Washington State University viticulturist north in 2001.
He rose through Columbia Crest, Ste. Michelle's Horse Heaven Hills engine, and built Intrinsic as a separate brand with a Zimer street-art label.
The 2020 Sauvignon Blanc is that idea in white: Columbia Valley fruit, tropical aromatics, a stony finish, a screw cap, ten dollars.
Goat cheese first, then scallops in the pan
Sauvignon Blanc with grapefruit and wet stone wants a cold salad with goat cheese, then a hard sear on scallops. Not a heavy cream sauce.
Two plates. One goat cheese salad. One pan of scallops. Both can take citrus and minerality.
Serve near 48 F. No decant. A white-wine glass. Drink now.
Arugula salad with lemon dressing
Peppery greens, lemon, a little honey. Add goat cheese and pear if you have them. The salad that Sauvignon Blanc was built for.
Why it works: Lemon and greens echo grapefruit and wet stone. Goat cheese fat lets the acid stay upright.
View Recipe for Love and Lemons arugula salad (opens in a new tab)
Pan-seared scallops
Hard brown crust, lemon butter. The stone in the wine meets the sear.
Why it works: Sweet scallop and browned butter match peach and mango while the wine's acidity cuts the butter.
View Recipe for pan-seared scallops (opens in a new tab)Open Munoz-Oca's Sauvignon Blanc tonight
Columbia Valley fruit. Screw cap. Papaya, peach, wet stone. Ten dollars.
Put it in the cart. This is the Washington white that closes the proof without asking for Napa money.
