Pale straw color; lemon, peach on the nose; lemon, white peach, tangerine, tropical fruit, passionfruit on the palate.
Dry; good acidity (3.22); no tannin or oak influence. Grapes come from several California vineyards. Harvested at night to preserve acidity and freshness. Fermented in stainless steel for up to three weeks, depending on vineyard site. Aged in stainless steel six months before blending and bottling. 12.5% ABV
Scout & Cellar touts its clean-crafted commitment. Bottled under sustainable cork with sterile filtration. Bentonite used for fining, inert gas for anti-oxygen protection. No artificial processing aids or added sugars. Vegan, gluten free; 100 calories per 5-ounce pour. Ingredients listed on label: grapes, tartaric acid, yeast, sulfites. Bottles are lightweight glass, up to 50% recycled. There is no foil and cases are made with undyed cardboard for recycling.
Scout & Cellar is an intriguing story. Sarah Shadonix, a Dallas attorney, founded the company in 2017 in Dallas. Nine years into her legal career she was bitten by the wine bug and left law for Wine Country Connect, an e-commerce venture that connects producers with consumers. In her new position, she found that drinking some wines made her ill. She blamed chemicals and pesticides in the wine.
Shadonix founded Scout & Cellar to market “clean crafted” wines. The website notes its wines are: “free of yucky stuff like synthetic pesticides and chemical additives and has fewer than 100 ppm [parts per million] of total sulfites.” The site claims its wines go through “two rounds of independent lab testing” to ensure they meet this criteria.
The winery further notes: “This combination of the audit of farming and production practices followed by independent lab testing ensures that each and every Scout & Cellar beverage backed by the Clean-Crafted Commitment® is made from fruit grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides or persistent chemicals, and is produced without synthetic processing aides or sweeteners and is low in sulfites.”
Some controversy ensues because one Scout & Cellar distribution method is selling by individuals (called consultants), similar to a multi-level marketing approach, although the winery vigorously denies comparison to pyramid schemes. Scout & Cellar produces much of the wine they sell. They also market bottles made by others. The label says this was bottled by Scout Wild Wines, Santa Maria, CA. In 2022, Scout & Cellar announced a partnership with Miller Family Wine for nationwide distribution of Scout Wild sauvignon blanc (this wine), red blend, and a rosé.
Miller Family Wine Company is a division of Thornhill Companies, a leader in umbrella winemaking with five generations of experience. Other brands include: Bien Nacido Estates, Butternut, J. Wilkes, optik, Ballard Lane, Smashberry, Barrel Burner, Volunteer, and Hand on Heart wines.
I am not sure if individual consultants sell this wine, but it is available at Target and other retail stores. That is the reason for the review. I try to avoid reviewing wines that are not generally available at local stores, online, or direct from the winery.
Scout & Cellar Scout Wild Sauvignon Blanc fits the classic sauvignon blanc “salad in a glass” profile. It is a solid SB, easy drinker, fresh, smooth, tasty. It does not have the sharp edges of New Zealand effort or raciness and complexity of a French Sancerre, but its clean, unchallenging profile will be appreciated by many. Pair with seafood, freshwater fish, shellfish, shrimp; works sipped all by itself, too. Cheese—goat cheese; muenster, gouda, brie, monterey jack, parmesan, provolone, baby swiss. $18-19