Some New Zealand Selections

GREYWACKE

An Australian winery, many years ago now, launched a little winery in New Zealand's Marlborough region called Cloudy Bay.  

They hired a young feller named Kevin Judd to be the winemaker, as he'd graduated from Roseworthy College, worked for Australia's Reynella winery before moving on to New Zealand's Selaks.

Judd worked for 25 harvests at Cloudy Bay so he's seen it all.  He witnessed the blossoming of New Zealand's wine industry, dealt with all sorts of vintage challenges and make some wines which put the country on the world's wine map.

When he started at Cloudy Bay, of course, things were manageable.  It was a small business.  Today it's a 250 hectare winery and even that's not enough to meet the demand, so they buy fruit from numerous growers.

Well, with Cloudy Bay being part of the Veuve Clicquot branch of the Louis Vuitton-Moet-Hennessy conglomerate, things started to become fairly corporate at the winery.  Despite his accomplishments, if you had a gander at Cloudy Bay's web site a few years ago, there was not a mention of Judd, let alone of tip of their corporate cap!  That's a bit like Napa's Beaulieu Vineyards not keeping Andre Tchelistcheff's memory alive or the Mondavi winery forgetting about Robert Mondavi...

The current website does mention Kevin Judd as they should have some years ago!

In 2009 Judd started making wine for his own brand, a name he'd registered back in the 1990s, thinking then, "one day perhaps I'll have my own winery!"  And some pals with whom he'd worked at Cloudy Bay offered him some space at their new winery, Dog Point.  

We had seen the Greywacke wines listed in the large liquor company catalogue and, while we knew whose wines they were, we had not tasted them.  I asked the sales rep, a "wine specialist" and he knew nothing about Greywacke.  So we bought a bottle of the 2011 "regular" Sauvignon Blanc and a 2010 "Wild Sauvignon."

We liked both wines very much.  The "Wild" bottling is more of a winemaker's wine or a wine for some wine writers...it's showing notes of Sauvignon Blanc, for sure, but there's a whiff of wood and an overtone reminiscent of honey.

Showing greater clarity of the grape and the place is the 2025 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  It's a thrilling bottle of wine, showing beautiful citrusy notes of New Zealand Sauvignon with ripe melon notes, a touch of an herbal quality and maybe a note of gooseberry or "green."  It's dry.  It's marvelously fruity and it's got zesty, zippy acidity.  What's not to like?

Then Judd makes a sort of Reserve bottling of Sauvignon Blanc called "Wild" Sauvignon.  
It's a wild yeast fermentation and this is done in barrel with just a small percentage of new wood.  

We tasted the 2023 Wild Sauvignon and it's an entirely different version...less easily identifiable as coming from New Zealand!  Citrusy...
Very fine, but it strikes us as being quite different from the previous vintages of "Wild Sauvignon."
It's not showing the toasty notes or much influence from an oak barrel...Quite good, though.

Currently in stock:  2025 GREYWACKE SAUVIGNON BLANC SALE $21.99
2023 GREYWACKE "WILD" SAUVIGNON BLANC  $29.99
2017 GREYWACKE PINOT NOIR  Sold Out

ISABEL ESTATE

It was ages ago, before New Zealand was really on the wine map, that we were introduced to this winery.  
Everyone knew Cloudy Bay in those days, but there were not that many New Zealand wines in the Bay Area wine market.

A fellow named Michael Tiller was the owner and ambassador for this new winery.  He had been a pilot and flying regularly over the Marlborough region he noticed a place in the Wairu Valley which seemed to have a particularly favorable location as it was never frozen when neighboring areas were suffering from frost.

He purchased property there and began planting grapes, selling fruit to other wineries.  In the 1990s he and his wife Robyn began making a bit of wine and that launched Isabel Estate, the winery being named after Tiller's mother who had encouraged him to work the wine business as a full-time occupation.

We had numerous good vintages and then, combined with the local importer's challenges, the winery found itself in some financial straits.

And so Isabel Estate was no longer on our radar.

It seems the winery is now under new ownership and we tasted a couple of Isabel wines made by a new winemaking team.

The 2021 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is a winner!

It was harvested a modest sugar levels, retaining good acidity and then the juice was fermented in stainless steel to capture the classic New Zealand fruit.
Something like 5% was fermented in large French oak puncheons to give a note of complexity to the wine...It's dry and beautifully aromatic with snappy grapefruit and citrus tones.  We recently shared a bottle with friends at a dim sum place and everyone was delighted with this.

 

There's a 2019 Pinot Noir is also a delight (and well-priced)...mildly cherryish fruit is framed by a bit of French oak.  This gives good California and Oregon Pinots a run for the money.  

 

It's nice to have the return of some "old friends."

Currently in stock:  2021 ISABEL ESTATE Marlborough SAUVIGNON BLANC $19.99
2019 ISABEL ESTATE Marlborough PINOT NOIR  $28.99

LAWSON'S DRY HILLS

Ross and Barbara Lawson planted their first vineyards in 1982 and the brand and property were sold to Tim and Pauline Evill.  The Evills had spent time in Asia, as Tim worked promoting Mercedes Benz cars in China, amongst other endeavors.

The couple had purchased an historic building in Blenheim which they converted to a boutique hotel with a fancy bar and restaurant.  So, of course, they were part of the Marlborough wine community and became friendly with the Lawsons.

Ross Lawson passed away in 2009 and Barbara sold the business to the Evills.

Lawson's owns about 60 hectares of vineyards and leases another 60.  The vineyards are scattered around the Marlborough region, which they credit with providing greater complexities in their wines.

We've enjoyed the Lawson's Sauvignon for a number of years.  The crew looks for a passionfruit character in their wine and times the picking of the Sauvignon Blanc with the development of that character in the grapes.

It's fermented mostly in stainless steel tanks with a cultured yeast to attain the maximum aromatics.  Yet a tiny percentage is fermented with indigenous yeast in small oak just to add another nuance to the wine.  

The alcohol level in their Sauvignon hovers, typically, around 13%, so it's less potent than many California wines.

Currently in stock:  LAWSON'S 2021 SAUVIGNON BLANC  Sold Out

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CLOS HENRI

 

There has been quite a flood of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wines arriving in our market.  It's no secret that many of the wines produced there are excellent expressions of the grape.

A real validation for the Marlborough region was the arrival of the Bourgeois family from France's Loire Valley.  Their arrival was rather like the Baron Rothschild's or Christian Moueix' interest in owning a piece of the Napa Valley far from their Bordeaux homes.   Or Drouhin's arrival in Oregon's Willamette Valley.



Bourgeois is the leading ambassador for the Sauvignons from various top Loire appellations, especially that of Sancerre.  

The land purchased by the Bourgeois family was virgin vineyard territory, featuring three soil types.  The property is about 109 hectares presently and they've been planting more vines annually.

They planted their vineyards at higher-than-normal density for New Zealand.  It's normal for France, but a bit of a rarity in New Zealand apparently.

Bourgeois is also cultivating organically and biodynamically.  Dry farming, too.

We find the Clos Henri wine to combine elements of top Loire Valley Sauvignons with top New Zealand wines.  Having notes of each makes for an unusually complex bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, no matter the wine's birthplace.   We like the minerality of this wine, as well as the spicy pineapple and citrus tones.  It's got more 'weight' than your average New Zealand Sauvignon, yet it's not as potent as most California Sauvignons.  

We've enjoyed a number of vintages over the past decade, or so.

We currently have a Pinot Noir from Clos Henri, their 2022 vintage "Waimaunga" bottling.

They vineyards are densely planted in an effort to stress the vines to some extent.  They mature the wine in large French oak so as to highlight the Pinot Noir fruit and this seems to have had the desired effect.  Dark cherry fruit is up front and there's a subtle woodsiness in the background. 

Beautifully balanced and showing beautifully in its youth.

Currently in stock:  2016 CLOS HENRI SAUVIGNON BLANC Sold Out
2022 CLOS HENRI PINOT NOIR  "Waimaunga"  $42.99

CLOUDY BAY 2025 SAUVIGNON BLANC  SALE $39.99

CLOUDY BAY 2021 SAUVIGNON BLANC  Magnums!  SALE $89.99
CLOUDY BAY  2014 TE KOKO SAUVIGNON BLANC  Sold Out
CLOUDY BAY 2023 PINOT NOIR $49.99

Associated today with the Champagne producer Veuve Clicquot, Cloudy Bay was founded in 1985 by the folks at Australia's Cape Mentelle winery.   They are world famous for their exceptional Sauvignon Blanc, but also produce Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and a bottle-fermented sparkling wine.  The supply used to be much sought-after and doled out to "worthy" customers who supported the Clicquot (and associated brands) line of Champagne.

 

The winery was founded by a fellow named David Hohnen who hired Kevin Judd as the winemaker.  Hohnen had studied viticulture here in California at Fresno State ages ago before applying his knowledge in Western Australia at what had been an affiliated winery in Margaret River called Cape Mentelle.

He had tasted a New Zealand Sauvignon and that lit the spark that became a hugely successful venture called Cloudy Bay.

Hohnen has returned to be somewhat of an "Ambassador" for Cloudy Bay.



Today there are dozens of terrific New Zealand Sauvignons and hundreds of brands of Kiwi plonk and this has taken the pressure off Cloudy Bay.  They still make good wine, though, but it's not as "hot" a brand as it once was.  

The 2025 is a good example of their handiwork.  Nice fruit, dry and crisp.
Most of the juice is fermented in stainless steel after the juice is settled for a few days.  They use cultured yeast and indigenous.  A tiny percentage of the juice is fermented at slightly warmers temps in wood, not so much for oak but simply to have another layer of complexity in the wine

It's bottled just a few months after the fermentation to capture the fresh citrusy, lemon-grass notes of their Sauvignon Blanc.

We currently have a few, very limited format, magnum bottles of the 2021.

There's a special bottling of Sauvignon called Te Koko.
This comes from some of their oldest vineyards.  The juice is fermented in oak, though less than ten-percent of the barrels are new. 
No cultured yeasts for Te Koko...only indigenous yeast.  It is aged longer than their regular bottling and the wine is quite a different animal than their regular bottling.  In fact, there's a bit of malolactic fermentation to this batch.
It's quite good, but it's not for everyone.
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Pinot Noir here can be quite good.
We currently have the 2023 vintage and in a recent blind tasting of New Zealand Pinot Noirs it finished in second place...right behind their $100/bottle Pinot from Central Otago.
Both good wines but I can't say the $100 bottle is twice as good...
Mild cherry fruit and a hint of wood.
Quite pleasant.

 

 

 

FIRE ROAD

The Fire Road label is a brand made for a US importer, as we understand it and it's vinified at some sort of custom-crush facility in Marlborough.  

The name comes from a catastrophic event back at the turn of the century when there was a major fire in Marlborough around Blenheim and some sort of "fire road" was established in an effort to extinguish the flames...

The wine is not only a good example of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, it's attractively-priced at thirteen bucks. 

Lots of citrus and grapefruit notes to the 2021...classic New Zealand Sauvignon.

 

Currently in stock:  2023 FIRE ROAD SAUVIGNON BLANC  SALE $12.99

 

 

 

NAUTILUS

The Australian family, Hill-Smith, started a distribution business in neighboring New Zealand and along with that the distribution company launched a winery called Nautilus.

The distribution company offers an impressive portfolio of wines to sell to shops and restaurants in New Zealand:  Gaja, Sassicaia, Bollinger, Chateau d'Yquem, Guigal, Henschke, Egon Muller and St. Clair from their backyard.

They launched Nautilus in the mid-1980s and today it's a well-regarded brand in its home market.  We'd had their wines quite a few years ago and have found this to be a reliably good producer of Sauvignon Blanc.

In 2000 they finished building a winery devoted exclusively to making their Pinot Noir and in 2006 they put the finishing touches on an energy-efficient facility devoted solely to white wine production.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In making Sauvignon Blanc, they strive to produce a wine for the dinner table, not to be a cocktail-hour show-piece.  If you need a translation for that, it means they make a wine which is a good deal more subtle than the typical Kiwi-land Sauvignon.  Further translating, this means for some people, the wine will not be "audible" as they've not cranked the volume up all the way so the VU Meter is not in the red zone.

The grapes come from a handful of Estate vineyards and they have long-term contracts with local growers.

Wairau Valley, gravelly soil sites are one part of the puzzle...gravel over mud-stone in the Awatere Valley and some clay/loess soils in the south.  As they make their blend, they look more for texture rather than the 'loud' expression of many NZ Sauvignons and they use the term "sophisticated" in describing their wine.  
A small percentage was fermented in oak...something like 2%...just to create another subtle nuance in the wine.

And so the resulting wine is perhaps more suited to the "Old World" wine drinker than today's hipster wine fan.  

We like the Nautilus wine, as it occupies a place on the spectrum of New Zealand Sauvignons which few winemakers seek.

Currently in stock: 2024 NAUTILUS SAUVIGNON BLANC  SALE $18.99

 

 

While we don't have the facilities to keep an encyclopedic collection of New Zealand wines in the shop, we'll be happy to special order your favorites.  There's been a flood of wines arriving in the market.  

 

Wine Tasting Today

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