What could be more American than FumeBlanc, a wine that was essentially made up here on our shores out of whole cloth, invented to help California differentiate itself and pull out from under the shadow of French wines, something it has long since done.
While the two are synonymous (same grape) and some wine people deride fumeblanc as simply a made-up name and marketing gimmick, there is more to the story. 45 years ago American sauvignon blanc was in its underappreciated infancy, overlooked by many quality winemakers, and what existed tended to be much sweeter and had a negative reputation.