Growing up with Greywacke

If New Zealand has developed a new ‘cult’ wine to rival Cloudy Bay in its 1990s heyday, it is ironic – and perhaps very fitting – that a top contender would be Greywacke’s Wild Sauvingon Blanc. For the man who launched Greywacke in 2009 is Kevin Judd, for 25 years the man who also made Cloudy Bay.

Named after a type of river stone found in the Marlborough region, Greywacke was an instant success. Tasting it in 2011 I rated that first release of the Wild Sauvignon 93/100 (still the joint highest score I’ve ever given to a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc), but every wine in that initial release – the regular Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Late Harvest Gewurztraminer – scored in the 90s with me. Critics loved the wines and as word spread, so did wine drinkers. A new legend was born.

I’ve managed to meet up with Kevin a couple of times and to keep up with the wines, tasting the new releases each year, so it was a pleasure when he arranged for me to have this mini-vertical of all vintages of the Wild Sauvignon, 2009 – 2013, to taste the first five years of wine history in the making. The 2014 is now on UK shelves.

As the name suggests, the ‘wild’ Sauvignon is made with naturally occurring yeasts (a big departure from the Marlborough norm, where specific cultured yeasts are used to enhance aroma, flavour and texture), and it is made in old oak barrels in a style more akin to Burgundy. Kevin does not own vineyards, so sources fruit from the cool Southern Valleys and the central Wairau Plains. With all of the Greywacke wines there’s a terrific balance between ‘hand’s off’, natural winemaking and pin-point, light touch accuracy.

New expressions of Sauvignon Blanc are becoming more and more important for Marlborough, and Greywacke is undoubtedly a trailblazer in that respect. It is still leading the pack.

The wines

Greywacke is imported by Liberty Wines.