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PREMIUM

Cloudy Bay: a Sauvignon Blanc success story

At the launch of the 2022 vintage of Cloudy Bay’s iconic Sauvignon Blanc, winemaker Daniel Sorrell chats with Natasha Hughes MW about what makes the wine as popular today as it was when first released almost 40 years ago – and why it can age.

It’s not often that you can say that one estate has been largely responsible for launching a wine region onto the world stage, but if any single winery could be said to have sparked a global demand for Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, that producer would have to be Cloudy Bay.

While wines were already being made in Marlborough in the early 1980s, before David Hohnen joined forces with winemaker Kevin Judd to launch Cloudy Bay in 1985, it’s just that they hadn’t yet had much of an impact beyond New Zealand’s borders.


Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for six Cloudy Bay wines, including the 2022 Sauvignon Blanc


Yet within a couple of years of Cloudy Bay’s launch, the country had gained a worldwide reputation as the go-to source for zesty, fruity premium Sauvignon Blanc – and Cloudy Bay had become its standard bearer. Nearly 40 years on from then, and Cloudy Bay is as much in demand as ever.


Cloudy Bay Sauvignon: new releases and some older vintages


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