My Favorite White Wines Worth Drinking Right Now (No Apologies)

For years I avoided white wine like it was my ex-husband.

Then my father and his entire family moved into my house for a month, and I started hiding wine under the bathroom sink. The five Xanax my friend loaned me were gone by day three. White wine stepped in where pharmaceuticals failed.

What I learned in that bathroom: the right white wine isn’t a consolation prize for people who “don’t like reds.” It’s its own universe — wildly varied, deeply underestimated, and capable of being genuinely transcendent. The wrong white wine is Yellowtail Chardonnay. There’s better wine at Aldi. I’m serious.

These are the bottles I actually reach for. Not the ones I’m supposed to recommend. Mine.

Jump to the list:

• La Chiara Gavi
• Barbara Ohlzelt Grüner Veltliner
• Pieropan Soave Classico
• Badenhorst Secateurs Chenin Blanc
• Aragosta Vermentino di Sardegna
• Sauvignon Blanc: Three Price Points
• Louis Latour Chardonnay
• Hugel Pinot Blanc Cuvée Les Amours
• D’Arenberg The Hermit Crab
• Granbazán Ambar Albariño
• Mouton Noir OPP Pinot Gris

How to Pick the Best White Wine for You

White wine is produced in a dizzying range of styles — from bone dry and flinty to rich and buttery to light and fresh. Before you buy, ask yourself one question: what do I actually want right now?

Light and fresh? Go Gavi, Soave, or Vermentino. Crisp and mineral? Grüner Veltliner or Sancerre. Rich and textured? Chardonnay or Viognier. Something nobody else is drinking? Chenin Blanc or Pinot Blanc.

Now — the list.

La Chiara Gavi DOCG — The Italian Porch Pounder

Say “Gavi di Gavi” three times fast. I’ll wait.

This is one of my favorite white wines, full stop. Made from the Cortese grape in Northern Italy’s Gavi di Gavi appellation by the Bergaglio family — three generations, no chemicals, all grapes picked by hand since Ferdinando Bergaglio founded the estate in 1912.

What’s in the glass: white flowers on the nose, then golden pear, fresh apricot, lemon, white grapefruit, and a savory finish of flint and copper that somehow makes all the sense in the world. It pours with a 14k gold shimmer. It’s clean, fresh, bold, and aromatic without being heavy.

It’s the perfect switch-up for Sauvignon Blanc lovers who think they’ve already found their white wine. You haven’t.

Best with: crab cakes, grilled fish, shellfish, light pasta, or absolutely nothing at all.

Price point: ~$15-18

Barbara Ohlzelt Grüner Veltliner Kamptal 2024 — Sauvignon Blanc’s Cooler, More Cynical Cousin

Let me tell you something about Grüner Veltliner: it doesn’t care what you think about its delicious sharpness and vegetal notes. While Sauvignon Blanc is out here trying to be liked, Grüner just is. White pepper, citrus zest, green herb, and a mineral precision that makes it one of the most food-friendly white wines on the planet.

This particular bottle comes in a one-liter format with a soda top. A soda top. Pour a glass, seal it, put it back in the fridge, come back tomorrow like a functioning adult. The wine equivalent of having your life together.

My Grüner pick hasn’t changed in years. Classic is classic.

Best with: pork schnitzel, asparagus, seafood, or anything with lemon butter.

Price point: ~$20 for 1L

Pieropan Soave Classico — The Most Underrated White Wine You’re Not Drinking

Soave gets ignored. That’s your opportunity.

Pieropan is the gold standard of Soave Classico — made from Garganega, an indigenous Italian grape grown on volcanic soils with old vines that have been in the family for generations. What comes through is beautiful: almond, stone fruit, honeyed florals, and a mineral finish that lingers long after the glass is empty.

This is the bottle you bring to a dinner party when you want someone to ask what is this? and you want to actually have an answer worth giving.

Best with: white fish, risotto, soft cheese, or roasted vegetables.

Price point: ~$18-22

Badenhorst Secateurs Chenin Blanc 2024 — The White Wine That Will Change Your Mind

Chenin Blanc done wrong is syrupy and forgettable. Done right — specifically from South Africa’s Swartland region — it’s a revelation.

Secateurs does it right. Dry, textured, layered, with stone fruit, quince, and a honeyed quality that stops well short of sweet. Swartland has quietly become one of the most exciting wine regions on the planet and Badenhorst is a big reason why.

This is a white wine with actual backbone. Not sweet. Anyone who tells you Chenin Blanc is sweet has been drinking the wrong ones.

Best with: roast chicken, creamy pasta, charcuterie, or aged gouda.

Price point: ~$16-20

Aragosta Vermentino di Sardegna — The Italian Coast in a Glass

The name means lobster. The label has a lobster on it. This is either the most on-the-nose wine marketing in history or pure genius and I’ve decided it’s genius.

Vermentino from Sardinia is one of the most food-friendly white wines you’ll ever encounter — bright citrus, white peach, almonds, a whisper of anise, and a briny, slightly bitter finish that is the Italian coast in a glass. It’s the wine for grilled fish, anything with olive oil, or sitting somewhere warm pretending you have nowhere else to be.

Best with: grilled fish, seafood pasta, olive-oil based dishes, or antipasti.

Price point: ~$14-18

The Best Sauvignon Blanc at Three Price Points

Sauvignon Blanc is one of the most versatile white wine grapes in the world — and one of the most abused. Here are three bottles that earn it:

The $7 weeknight pour — find it at Trader Joe’s: Tuatea Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Bright, clean, does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Some bottles need to be special. This one needs to be in your fridge every Tuesday. Trader Joe’s carries it. You have no excuse.

The step up: Rippon Sauvignon Blanc 2023, Central Otago, New Zealand. Biodynamic, richer texture, more complexity than your standard Marlborough. Worth paying attention to.

The classic: Hippolyte Reverdy Sancerre 2024, Loire Valley, France. Bone dry, flinty, precise, and everything that made me take Sauvignon Blanc seriously as a grape. If you’ve only had New Zealand versions, this is the bottle that rewrites everything you thought you knew. Non-negotiable.

Price range: $7 — $35

Louis Latour Chardonnay — Two Bottles, Zero Excuses

Chardonnay gets a bad reputation because of bad Chardonnay. Louis Latour is here to fix that.

Grand Ardèche Chardonnay — The everyday bottle. Clean, crisp, stone fruit and a touch of toast, nothing fussy. Proof that good Chardonnay doesn’t require a second mortgage.

Bourgogne Chardonnay 2023 — When you’re ready to spend a little more and want something that rewards your attention. More mineral depth, more complexity, more of everything. Burgundy Chardonnay is what the rest of the world spends its life trying to replicate. This is the real thing at an approachable price.

Price range: $18 — $28

Hugel Pinot Blanc Cuvée Les Amours 2022 — 13 Generations of Getting It Right

The Hugel family has been making wine in Alsace since 1639. Thirteen generations. The name “Les Amours” came from an English noblewoman dining with George Hugel in 1970 who kept saying how lovely the wine tasted and suggested they call it The Lovers Blend. So they did.

What’s in the glass: white flowers and apple on the nose, then green apple, yellow plum, fresh hay, and a lush roundness on the palate that feels completely effortless. Dry, fresh, clean, and charming without trying. About $18-20.

Pinot Blanc is the most underestimated white wine grape on the planet. This bottle is a strong argument for reconsidering that.

Best with: shellfish, salmon, mild cheese, or as an aperitif.

Price point: ~$18-20

D’Arenberg The Hermit Crab Viognier Marsanne — The $18 White Wine That Has No Business Being This Good

From McLaren Vale, Australia — built on limestone soils where actual hermit crabs once lived. That backstory alone earns it a spot on every list I make.

A blend of 65% Viognier and 35% Marsanne, this is Australia’s take on the French Rhône white wine tradition. Stone fruit, pineapple, honeysuckle, candied orange peel, and a finish of pickled ginger that makes no logical sense and yet is completely perfect. Lush without being heavy. Complex without being pretentious. About $18.

I would drink this every single day if I could. Drink it, don’t store it.

Best with: spicy Asian food, grilled chicken, seafood, or a Tuesday that needs improving.

Price point: ~$18

Granbazán Ambar Albariño 2023 — The Spanish White Wine You Should Already Know

Rías Baixas is in Galicia — the Green Spain, far northwest corner, where the Atlantic coast makes the landscape look more like County Cork than anywhere you’d expect to find serious wine. Granbazán has been the quality pioneer there since 1981.

The Ambar is made from their oldest vines, 100% free-run juice only, aged eight months on lees. Peach blossom, honeydew, tangerine, white flowers — and then a saline, briny finish that tastes like a sea breeze walked into your glass. Mineral-driven, precise, and completely mouthwatering.

Around $25 and it overdelivers at twice the price.

Best with: anything from the ocean, Thai food, fish tacos, crab cakes.

Price point: ~$24-28

Mouton Noir OPP Pinot Gris — Other People’s Pinot, My Favorite Crush

“Other People’s Pinot.” Winemaker André Mack named his entire label after the fact that he works with other people’s fruit and makes it extraordinary. I have had a secret crush on André Mack since I first wrote about this wine years ago. His wife knows. She’s fine.

I met him at a tasting event for one of his books, fully expecting us to become best friends. Instead I grinned at him like a complete fool for the entire interaction. We are not best friends. The wine is still excellent.

Lush, jubilant, pears and peaches with enough body to feel substantial without being heavy. Oregon Pinot Gris at its best — more freshness and precision than the Alsatian style, less weight, more personality.

Open it on a Tuesday because you deserve something good on a Tuesday.

Best with: roast pork, creamy sauces, soft cheese, salmon.

Price point: ~$18

The Bottom Line on White Wine

The best white wine is the one you actually want to drink — not the one someone told you to drink, not the one with the prettiest label, and definitely not Yellowtail Chardonnay.

Start with one bottle from this list. See what happens. Your bathroom sink will thank you.For the full deep dive on each of these wines — including the story of how white wine saved my life one summer and what I was hiding from — the complete version is on Wine & Drama’s Substack. Subscribers get the whole thing.