The rickety old truck creaks to a bumpy stop. "He's closed the gate," muses James Healy, oenologist at world-famous Cloudy Bay, as he loosens his grip on the steering wheel. "Must be sheep getting loose." He exits the truck, swings the gate open, and points his wheels up the side of a grassy hill with only the faintest suggestion of a driveable trail. The gate remains open, but no sheep seem poised for escape.
We idly wonder who "he" is, or if he cares that we're driving on his land.
At the top of the hill, high above the southern end of the Wairau Valley, the engine sputters to a halt. The apparently unending uniformity of the vignoble, as viewed from ground level, is now replaced by a better understanding. The (greater) northern portion is indeed a veritable sea of vines, stretching from Blenheim in the east to well past Renwick in the west, but the southern end creeps and flows into a regular series of smaller valleys between the arms of the Wither Hills. There's terroir here – planted yet virginal, just waiting for the curious to discover its complexities in this still-young region – and it's soon clear that Healy's brought us to this vantage point to explore just this point.
"The soils are different?" I ask.
Healy nods. "In some places. There's clay in the hills. But the climate is more important." He points, indicating the clouds that tirelessly necklace the surrounding mountains. We're standing in bright, full sun. It's the Marlborough weather pattern: the mountain ranges on either side of the Wairau River are deluged with rain, but there's a dramatic falloff in the river valley…1.3 to 1.4 meters on the Richmond Range vs. 750 millimeters at the winery. "We need irrigation just to keep young vines alive. Here," he indicates the surrounding vine-covered tributaries that are just beginning to climb the mountain slopes, "there's more rain."
He turns, his ashen hair buffeted by the prevailing westerlies. The southern microvalleys are, to a certain extent, protected from this wind, but the bulk of the valley is constantly buffeted and desiccated. Between these winds, intense solar rays only partially filtered by a regionally-depleted ozone layer, and yearly flirtations with drought, vines in Marlborough should have a tough time of it, their only protections the aforementioned irrigation and chilly nights that preserve acidity. Yet everywhere, there are grapes.
Don't fence me in
For a moment, there's silence, as he surveys the surrounding vines. "Lots of new plantings," he murmurs, almost to himself. And then we're back in his truck, bouncing and sliding back down the hill, pausing briefly on the way out to close the gate…and foiling the still-evolving escape plans of a nearby pair of sheep, who return to their placid munching.
In the white room
Back at the winery, the bustle of tourism and commerce proceeds apace. We're headed for a private tasting room, but neither Healy nor Sharon Forsyth – who has joined us – can seem to locate a key to the building in which it resides, nor do they appear to know where a duplicate might be found. We spend a few minutes having "The New Zealand Conversation" with Healy, while Forsyth tracks one down.
Inside, all is clean and sterile and very white, no doubt the sort of spot where the winery conducts its own analytical tastings. An array of bottles perches on a shelf just below the room's wall-length row of windows, each sporting the familiar Cloudy Bay label of progressively-tinted mountains. Through the windows and on the horizon, the inspiration for this singular label art broods, in multiple shades.
We move briskly through our tasting, while Healy engages in a little viticultural talk. He thinks 2002 is the best year since 1996, and that it benefits from the hard work they've exerted towards improving their pinot noir and sparkling wine. It would seem that some of their efforts have paid off:
Cloudy Bay "Pelorus" (Marlborough) – Mostly chardonnay (fermented primarily in old oak vats, though a little steel and smaller French oak are used), which is allowed to go through a full malolactic fermentation and spends a minimum of two years aging in bottle. It's very ripe, in the way one expects from a Marlborough wine, showing lemon, green apple, grapefruit, and banana rind layered over a dry-textured palate with a very satisfying impact. It's too fruity to not stick out amongst more Champagne-styled bubblies, but taken on its own merits it's a rather pleasant beverage that seems to have the balance for some very short-term settling.
Cloudy Bay 1998 "Pelorus" (Marlborough) – Here's the vintage version…two-thirds pinot noir, but otherwise undergoing much the same winemaking regime as the non-vintage sparkler; the primary differences are longer aging on the lees and more time in bottle (three years minimum). The pinot influence is immediately obvious, with big red cherry, strawberry, and orange rind aromas, coupled with more familiar grapefruit and apple at the core, and with a somewhat tropical banana skin edge. There's a slight hint of cedar on the finish. Lovely, and the best bubbly of the day.
Cloudy Bay 2002 Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough) – Here it is, the wine that "made" New Zealand on the international stage, and still the only Kiwi wine to really achieve cult status outside New Zealand and Australia. It has been the opinion of many tasters, me included, that the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc – while still somewhat of a benchmark for the style as expressed in Marlborough – has been regularly surpassed in quality by a few producers, more than a few if one considers regions other than Marlborough. But the lasting influence of the wine cannot be denied, locally or abroad. Even the Sancerrois have occasionally gotten into the act (most significantly Henri Bourgeois), producing new wines that can only be seen as deliberate attempts to ape the Marlborough style.
So where does that leave the wine that started it all? Healy sort of shrugs. It's clear from both his words and his body language that he feels somewhat trapped by the wine; it has become a "recipe" that must be followed to preserve the expected style and the market that follows it, rather than a forum for the best and sometimes variable expression of grape and site that the winemaking team at Cloudy Bay would be capable of pursuing. This is not to say that he doesn't feel the wine is good; he does, though he avoids the opportunity to place it in any sort of local or international hierarchy. Nonetheless, the winery's other products are rather obviously of more interest to him.
A range of ranges
As for the wine itself: well, there's a little volatile acidity that's immediately obvious on the nose. This is pretty quickly replaced by ripe lime and grapefruit, with gooseberry that only occasionally edges over into cat pee; it's a solid, intense, full-bodied wine that lingers sweetly into a pineapple finish. Make no mistake: it's very, very good sauvignon blanc. If it's not so clearly the leader of the stylistic revolution it started anymore, neither is it trailing far behind the leaders. What it lacks in the sheer exuberance of yesteryear is perhaps replaced by a bit of maturity that few other non-French sauvignon blancs exhibit. Yet it also lacks that sense of excitement that was always its most striking characteristic.
Whether or not this unexciting maturity will carry it into the future, its reputation intact, remains to be seen. It might not, given the next wine; another of the wild yeast sauvignons that seem to be capturing much attention, if not yet much acclaim, in Marlborough. Healy uses this opportunity to insist that they'll "definitely" move to indigenous yeasts for their entire lineup, "when possible," though he specifically excludes the flagship sauvignon blanc.
Cloudy Bay 2000 "Te Koko" (Marlborough) – Indigenous yeasts, full malo, a teensy bit (10%) of new French oak, and sur lie aging. Here's an entirely different expression of sauvignon blanc, and I suppose the benchmark must lie not in Marlborough or the Loire Valley, but rather in Bordeaux (if there is, indeed, any benchmark in mind). Passionfruit, mango, and banana abound, along with grace notes of spicy wood ("18 months," according to Healy); tropical yet soft and lush, this is definitely an attempt to marry the fun and the serious in a single wine. And it works, much better than in the similarly-conceived Seresin I tasted yesterday, in a way that allows more confidence in the wine's potential for development. The only thing it lacks is a certain firmness of structure, a backbone to support it as it resolves its still-separate components into a unified whole.
Cloudy Bay 2000 Chardonnay (Marlborough) – Solid orange, pineapple and grapefruit flavors with a hazelnut glaze; smooth and tasty, with good balance between the fruit and the wood. Nothing stands out here as exceptional, yet it's a finely-made chardonnay, and there aren't enough of those in the world.
Cloudy Bay 2002 Gewürztraminer (Marlborough) – Somewhat aggressive, which is always a character I prefer in gewürztraminer, and tasting nutty…dominated by cashew…with a mélange of curry and coriander and a long, very dry, and solid finish. With each new bottle in each new region, the potential for world-class gewürztraminer in New Zealand becomes clearer; it is perhaps the only place other than Alsace which is capable of doing something truly worthwhile with this grape.
Cloudy Bay 2000 Pinot Noir (Marlborough) – Healy notes that a lot of effort is going into this wine, and the effort shows. What isn't so clear is the direction of said effort. It's fresh, full of red and black cherries, strawberries and clover (especially on the finish), woven into a well-balanced structure of light tannin, good acidity tending towards cranberry, and an overall palate softness that reveals more and more floral notes as it airs. This all looks good on paper, and in fact the wine is eminently drinkable and tasty in a way that's impossible to dismiss. But does it really say anything? I'm unsure, and that in itself is a bit of a criticism, though criticizing a well-made pinot noir – one of the rarer beasts in the oenological universe – seems almost unfair, somehow. I expect that, with time and more vintages on which to experiment, this wine will gain the maturity it needs to find its place in the universe of pinot; right now, it's a well-behaved youth that's not yet much of a conversationalist.
Cloudy Bay 2000 Riesling "Late Harvest" (Marlborough) – 50% botrytis-infected, and aged in old wood for a year and a half. There's tangy pineapple, mango, and papaya buttressed by great acidity and forming a balanced package, but the wine lacks (and perhaps cannot have, from this terroir) the mineral core that most devotées of riesling seek. If the soil isn't capable of delivering more than the tropical fruit basket, than my criticism is unfair, but experience at another Marlborough winery (Fromm, later in the day) suggests otherwise…that it's a matter of viticulture and vinification, not the “inherency” of the regional terroir. So while it's a good wine with no flaws, it's also not a focus for rampant enthusiasm.
Wairau when you can fly?
Yeast reflection
Reading back over my notes, I'm struck by the contrast between the raw data – my actual impressions of the wines themselves – and my impression of the lineup; the words are more positive than the feelings, though the Cloudy Bay team in general, and Healy in particular, could not possibly have been more generous or informative. Back at the villa for lunch, I have time to reflect on the disconnection. And I decide that it's a matter of expectations.
Cloudy Bay has a certain reputation. That some take that reputation and blow it out of proportion is certainly not their fault, and a sensible observer could never hold them responsible for it (though they also do not attempt to counter it, and why should they?), but the reputation is impossible to ignore when one is not tasting their wines blind. And for the most part, they match that reputation with a lineup of high quality wines in which one can find no real faults; consistency is, itself, a goal too rarely achieved even by those at the top of the qualitative heap. Yet with consistency can come complacency, and while there are signs that this tendency is being fought – the Pelorus and Te Koko bottlings being the prime evidence thereof – the mainline sauvignon blanc is, as Healy admits, an ongoing testament to the restrictions that inertia can impose. Cloudy Bay has the material, the skill, and (never to be dismissed) the money to lead, and one hopes that they will continue to do so despite the lure of their considerably positive reputation and the rewards it provides.
Ultimately, however, I conclude that my lingering impression is somewhat unfair. Cloudy Bay, like Marlborough, is still quite new to the world of wine. Their future is vaster than their present – or their past – and it's too early to impose such expectations on a winery already achieving truly solid results. Yet as a goal, continued improvement remains not only worthwhile, but necessary. For just as Marlborough looks more complex and interesting when viewed from above its ocean of vines, so too should Cloudy Bay's future be considered from a loftier perspective, one surmounting the frenetic expansion of Marlborough as both region and brand. It is only from there that one can see the vines…and the mountains…on the horizon.
![[James Healy & the author]](http://www.wineloverspage.com/graphics/healey_thor.jpg)
![[tasting at Cloudy Bay]](http://www.wineloverspage.com/graphics/cloudy_bay_bottle_tasting.jpg)
![[Wairau Valley]](http://www.wineloverspage.com/graphics/wairau_overlook.jpg)