It goes better with food than chardonnay, it comes in more flavors and styles and it's usually cheaper. But sauvignon blanc remains the little sister of the world of white wine America. Go figure.

Chardonnay remains the queen of white wine, soaring 14 percent in sales since 2003 and owning a 21.5 percent share of the U.S. wine market.

Sauvignon blanc, in a sales rut since 1995, today has only 3 percent of the market in grocery, liquor and mass merchandise stores, according to the trend company ACNielsen.

Meanwhile, often characterless pinot grigio/gris has shot past sauvignon blanc, soaring by 50 percent since 2003 to take 4.6 percent of the market.

People are missing a great bet. Chardonnay is great for sipping by itself, but it's often too sweet to go well with food. Sauvignon blanc, often leaner, crisper and less intrusive, goes better with anything but the richest of foods.

Does all this bother Michael Beaulac, winemaker at Napa's St. Supery Vineyards? Nope.

St. Supery was founded in 1982 by the French wine family of Robert Skalli specifically to grow the grapes of Bordeaux: cabernet sauvignon, merlot and petit verdot among the reds plus the Bordeaux white varietal sauvignon blanc. Today its 200 acres of sauvignon blanc make up nearly 10 percent of all the sauvignon blanc grown in Napa County.

Recently Beaulac put on a tasting of sauvignon blancs from around the world to demonstrate the variety of flavors it develops in different climates, with different techniques — sweet pineapples in warm climates like Chile, gooseberries in cold climates like New Zealand, earthy in sun-starved areas such as France's Loire Valley.

For his own sauvignon blancs, Beaulac seeks Napa's heat and sun to ripen past the flavors of gooseberries, asparagus and bell peppers to red grapefruit, peaches, guavas.

"Here you see the whole range," he says. "Is there a single 'right' style? That's up to you."

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