Beyond Sauvignon Blanc: 5 White Wines Worth Discovering in 2026

You know your Sauvignon Blanc. It’s the bottle you grab when people are coming over in an hour and you’d rather not think about it. Bright, dry, cold, done.

Now look one shelf over. There’s a row of whites sitting right there that do the same job for about the same money, and most of us walk straight past them because we’ve never heard anybody say the names out loud. Albariño. Vermentino. Picpoul.

So here are five of them, with what each one tastes like, whether it’s sweet or dry, and when you’d actually open it. No homework required. Let’s get into it.

It helps to name what you already like about the wine you already drink, because that’s the yardstick for everything below.

• It’s dry. No sweetness on the finish. When wine people say dry, they mean the sugar from the grapes fermented into alcohol instead of staying in the bottle.
• It’s high in acid. That’s what makes your mouth water and makes you want another sip. It’s also why Sauvignon Blanc goes with so much food.
• It smells like citrus and something green. Grapefruit, lime, a little fresh-cut herb.

Our Vino del Pranzo Sauvignon Blanc is a good version of that. Vino del pranzo means lunch wine in Italian, which is fair. You open it on a Tuesday with whatever’s on the table. It also runs a touch lower in alcohol than most Napa whites, so you can linger over it.

Keep those three qualities in your head. Every wine below is one or two of them, turned a few degrees.

If you love how bright and zippy a Sauvignon Blanc is, Albariño is your next bottle. Same energy, a little saltier, and it tastes the way a seaside vacation feels.

It comes from Rías Baixas, the green rainy corner of northwest Spain where the vineyards sit close enough to the Atlantic to catch the spray. Cross the border into Portugal and the same grape is called Alvarinho.

Dry. Usually bone dry, with the same high acidity you like in Sauvignon Blanc. If a bottle reads as faintly sweet to you, that’s ripe stone fruit talking, not sugar.

No. Different grape, different country. But they’re close relatives in spirit: both dry, both high in acid, both built to go with dinner rather than sit around on their own. Albariño is a little rounder in the mouth, and it has a saline, sea-air thing that Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t.

Grapefruit and lime, white peach, green apple, and that salty finish. Some bottles have a faint prickle to them, almost like the memory of bubbles.

Pour it with: oysters, shrimp, grilled fish, fish tacos, salted almonds. Anything you’d eat with your hands outdoors.

Here’s the one that takes a sentence of explanation, and it’s worth it.

Chenin Blanc runs from bone dry to lightly sweet depending on where it’s grown and who made it. That sounds like a complication. It’s actually the reason it’s such a good wine to have around when you’re hosting, because once you can read the label you get to choose which version shows up.

Either one. It depends on the bottle. In France’s Loire Valley, and in Vouvray especially, the label tells you outright: sec is dry, demi-sec is a little off-dry, moelleux is sweet. Chenin Blanc from South Africa, where you’ll sometimes see it called Steen, is usually made dry.

Yellow apple and quince, with chamomile or honeycomb on the nose even when the wine itself finishes dry. There’s good acidity underneath holding the whole thing up.

A dry Chenin sits between Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. More texture than the first, less weight than the second. If you’ve ever wished your Sauvignon Blanc had a bit more body without losing the freshness, start here.

Pour it with: roast chicken, pork, curry and other lightly spiced dishes, aged cheddar. Apple tart if you’ve got a sweeter bottle. A dry Chenin is also one of the easier wines to put on a cheese board without overthinking it.

Some nights you don’t want zippy. You want a white with a little more weight to it, something that fills the glass.

That’s Viognier, and it’s the one on this list we know best, because we make it. It came out of the northern Rhône in France, found a second home in California, and it’s what we reach for at the bar when somebody says they want a white but they’re tired of the same two.

Dry. This trips people up, because Viognier smells sweet. Apricot, peach, honeysuckle, orange blossom. Your nose expects dessert and your mouth gets a dry wine.

In body, yes. Viognier is fuller and rounder than Sauvignon Blanc with lower acidity, which puts it in Chardonnay territory on weight. The aromas are where they split. Chardonnay leans citrus, apple, and whatever the oak adds; Viognier goes floral and stone fruit. If you’re a Chardonnay drinker still working out where you land on oak, our unoaked Chardonnay piece covers that.

It’s the softer end of both. Sauvignon Blanc is sharper and greener. Pinot Grigio is lighter and more neutral. Viognier has the perfume and the texture, same dryness, more presence in the glass.

Our Napa Valley Viognier is a fair place to meet the grape. Aromatics forward, clean finish, warm without being heavy. 

Pour it with: roast chicken with herbs, pork, squash and root vegetables, Thai and Vietnamese food, soft cheeses. Of these five, it’s also the one that holds up best once the weather turns.

Open this one when it’s warm and nobody wants to be indoors.

Vermentino grows along the Italian coast, mostly Sardinia and Liguria with some in Tuscany, and it tastes like where it’s from. You’ll also see it as Vermentinu in Corsica and Rolle in southern France, in case one of those turns up on a label.

A dry, medium-bodied white with fresh acidity and a lightly bitter herbal edge on the finish. Green almond, citrus pith, something in that direction. That bitterness is doing real work: it’s what makes the wine so good with olive oil and salt.

Somewhere between Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio. Lemon and grapefruit like the first, easy and uncomplicated like the second, plus a savory herbal note neither one has. If Pinot Grigio has started to feel a little quiet, this is where to go.

Pour it with: anything out of a Ligurian kitchen. Pesto, white beans, grilled vegetables, seafood pasta, a plate of olives and good bread.

Smallest name on the list, easiest to love. Picpoul comes from the Languedoc in southern France, and the bottles you’ll find are usually labeled Picpoul de Pinet.

Picpoul is the grape, Pinet is the village. Those vineyards sit right beside the Étang de Thau, a coastal lagoon that happens to be one of France’s biggest oyster beds, which tells you most of what you need to know about how the wine is meant to be drunk.

Very. The name translates roughly to lip-stinger, a fair warning about the acidity. Lemon, green apple, and a clean, almost stony finish. Lean, in a good way.

Pour it with: oysters above all. Also fried anything, ceviche, goat cheese, and a hot afternoon.

Find the row that matches the mood, then go find that bottle.

What white wine is most similar to Sauvignon Blanc? Albariño. Both are dry, both are high in acid, both go with dinner. Albariño is a little rounder with a salty finish Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t have. Vermentino is the runner-up.

What’s a good alternative to Pinot Grigio? Vermentino. Just as easy to drink, just as good with food, with more citrus and a herbal note that gives it some character. Picpoul works too if you want something brisker.

Which of these white wines are sweet? Only Chenin Blanc, and only in certain styles. Albariño, Viognier, Vermentino, and Picpoul are dry. Viognier is the one that fools people, because it smells sweet and finishes dry.

Is Viognier similar to Chardonnay? In weight and texture, yes. In aroma, no. Chardonnay tends toward citrus, apple, and oak influence. Viognier is floral and stone fruit. Most Chardonnay drinkers find Viognier familiar on the first sip.

What food pairs best with these whites? Seafood runs through all of them, since all five come from places where people eat out of the water. Past that: Albariño with shellfish, Chenin Blanc with roast chicken and spice, Viognier with squash and herbs, Vermentino with anything involving olive oil, Picpoul with oysters.

What cheese goes with a crisp white wine? Fresh goat cheese and young sheep’s milk cheeses work with all five. Harder, older cheeses do better with a dry Chenin Blanc or a Viognier, which have the body to stand up to them.

Where can I buy Albariño, Vermentino, or Picpoul? Most decent wine shops carry at least one of the three, usually somewhere in the $18–$30 range. They’re often shelved by country rather than by grape, so look under Spain, Italy, and France.

How do I know if a white wine will be sweet before I open it? Check the label for sec, demi-sec, or moelleux, and look at the alcohol percentage. A wine under about 11% often has some sweetness left in it. Our white wine guide for beginners goes through the rest.

Nobody needs to become a wine expert. You just need one more bottle in the rotation that makes the table a little more interesting than it was last week.

Pick whichever row sounded good and start there. And if you want somewhere to start tonight, our Viognier is the one we’d hand you first. Cheers.