A September supper built around one Darling white

The sea bass is the easy part. Two whole fish, gutted and scaled at the counter. Three slashes through the skin on each side, a good salting, then a fistful of thyme and parsley pushed into the cavity with half a lemon. Ten minutes or so under a hot grill, turned once, and supper is on the table.

The harder part is September. The evenings have gone cool and a bit damp, but nobody is ready for stew yet, and a big oaky white would sit on that fish like a duvet. What you want is something with summer still in it and enough acidity to stand in for the second lemon you forgot to buy. The bottle we keep pulling out for exactly this meal has been in the fridge door since lunchtime.

So here is the whole evening: what goes in the pan, what goes in the glass, and what happens when the two meet.

The bottle, and why it suits the month

It's the Darling Sauvignon Blanc by Fairview Estate, grown on west-facing hills about three hundred metres up on South Africa's west coast. Darling sits close enough to the Atlantic that the sea does most of the farming: cold air pushed in off the Benguela current tempers the Cape summer, so the grapes hang long enough to build real flavour without losing their natural bite.

The patch itself is decomposed granite, which is unusual for Darling and drains hard and fast. Fairview farms it dry, with no irrigation at all, so the vines go looking for water rather than being handed it. That struggle is why the fruit tastes concentrated rather than watery, and why the wine has a mineral edge under all the citrus.

In the cellar the whole thing is a rescue mission for freshness. The grapes are picked in the dark before sunrise so they arrive cold and unbruised, pressed as whole berries, settled for a couple of days, then fermented in stainless steel at controlled temperatures. Two months on fine lees afterwards gives it a little more body across the middle of the palate without blunting the acidity.

Serve it properly cold, eight to ten degrees, in a white-wine glass rather than a small tumbler. A 750ml bottle covers two people through a starter and a main with a glass left over for the washing-up.

Darling Sauvignon Blanc by Fairview Estate in the vineyards of South Africa, the story

Start with the goat's cheese

Thick slices of sourdough, toasted on one side. Turn them, lay a disc of goat's cheese on the untoasted side, and put them back under the grill until the cheese slumps and browns at the edges. Honey over the top while it's still hot, a grind of black pepper, and that's your starter.

This is where the wine introduces itself. Goat's cheese and Sauvignon Blanc is one of those pairings that works because both sides are tart: the wine's zesty citrus meets the chalky tang of the cheese and neither backs down. The honey is the interesting bit. It gives the tropical side of the wine something to lean on, so the fruit reads riper and rounder than it did on the first sip.

Eat it standing up in the kitchen while the fish is under the grill. That's the correct way.

Then the sea bass

Grilled sea bass with lemon and herbs is a dish with almost nothing in it, which is exactly why the wine matters. Bass has sweet, clean flesh and crisp skin, and it needs acidity nearby or it turns flabby on the plate.

That mouth-watering snap on the finish does the job a wedge of lemon does, except it keeps doing it, glass after glass. The vivid citrus in the wine sits right alongside the lemon in the fish, and the tropical lift underneath stops the whole meal feeling austere.

Keep the sides quiet. New potatoes with butter and a green salad with a sharp vinaigrette. Anything creamy or heavily garlicked and you're fighting your own dinner.

Food pairing for Darling Sauvignon Blanc by Fairview Estate, Grilled sea bass with lemon

If the weather turns, change the plan

September being September, the fishmonger might be a step too far on a wet Tuesday. A creamy smoked haddock fish pie is the better bet then, and the wine handles it: the acidity cuts straight through the béchamel and resets your palate before the next forkful, which is more than most whites manage against a mash topping.

The other route is heat. A Thai green prawn curry, hot with green chilli and loud with lime and coriander, finds a natural partner in this bottle. Cold, fresh, citrus-driven whites are the classic answer to green curry, and the tropical fruit here meets the lime leaf halfway.

And hold one back for next spring. Asparagus and peas with plenty of torn mint, this bottle alongside, is one of the great pleasures of a British May. If you're building a broader white wine shelf from the Cape, this is the one that earns its keep across the most meals.

What's left in the glass

By the time the plates are stacked, the wine in the bottom of the bottle has warmed a degree or two and opened up. It gets rounder, less sharp-elbowed, and that's worth noticing: it tells you the lees work is doing something real underneath the fruit.

Drink it young. This is not a bottle to lie down and forget; there's no reward waiting at the far end. Within two or three years of release is where the citrus and the zip are at their most vivid, and after that you're only losing what you liked about it in the first place.

If this evening sold you on the grape, the Cape's take on Sauvignon Blanc is worth working through properly. And when you do want a red for the colder end of autumn, Fairview's Paarl Pinotage comes from the same stable.

If that sounds like your kind of Friday, Fairview's Darling Sauvignon Blanc is the bottle to have cold in the fridge door when the fish comes home. It suits anyone who cooks with lemon and chilli more often than with butter and cream, and it makes a straightforward gift for the friend who always reaches for something crisp. Delivered across the UK.