Winemaker Notes
#10 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2023
Aromas of cassis and passionfruit are first to emerge, with guava, crisp pear and white peach adding a delicious intricacy. On the palate, it is generous yet refreshing, with ripe pineapple and a lime sherbet zing, layered with elderflower and hints of citrus blossom. A classic example of Greywacke’s interpretation of the famous Marlborough style - ripe, textural and scruptious, with the volume turned well down.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Distinctive, succulent and wonderfully complex, with honeysuckle, honey-preserved ginger, creamy lemon curd, ripe mango and floral notes, plus stone fruit flavors on a rich, smooth and mouthwateringly juicy frame. Reveals hints of spices that linger on the long, expressive finish.
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Decanter
With 25 years at Cloudy Bay, Kevin Judd was key to the global renown of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Today his Greywacke wines (particularly the Wild Sauvignon) are standard bearers in their own right. This elegant, textural vintage brims with zippy pineapple sorbet, elderflower blossom and green mango freshness, with bracing lime acidity and a creamy passionfruit curd finish.
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James Suckling
Lots of character to this, with apples, pears, popcorn kernels and blanched nuts. It’s medium-bodied with delicious fruit and a flavorful finish. A serious savuignon blanc for chardonnay lover. Flinty and reductive at the end.
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Wine Enthusiast
Heady—but not bombastic—aromas of passion fruit, guava and jasmine, with grassy, flinty pungency beneath, pop from the glass. The palate shows lovely texture and balance with a saline, mineral core and a limy finish. This is a classic expression of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from one of its masters.
Capable of a vast array of styles, Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, refreshing variety that equally reflects both terroir and varietal character. Though it can vary depending on where it is grown, a couple of commonalities always exist—namely, zesty acidity and intense aromatics. This variety is of French provenance. Somm Secret—Along with Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc is a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. That green bell pepper aroma that all three varieties share is no coincidence—it comes from a high concentration of pyrazines (herbaceous aromatic compounds) inherent to each member of the family.
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.