As Cloudy Bay turns forty, the Marlborough pioneer behind New Zealand’s most iconic Sauvignon Blanc raises a glass to its legacy of discovery — and to a 2025 vintage that proves its story is far from over.
Few wineries in the world can lay claim to having changed the course of a nation’s wine story. New Zealand’s Cloudy Bay sits proudly among them. When David Hohnen first tasted Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in 1983, he was struck by its intensity, with its unmistakable rush of citrus, cut grass, and passionfruit that seemed to hum with energy. Two years later, he and winemaker Kevin Judd would launch Cloudy Bay and, in doing so, bottled the essence of a place that would soon define a globally recognised style — a Sauvignon Blanc that was vibrant, pure, and electrifying.
Cloudy Bay wasn’t the first winery to plant and produce the first New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc — that honour goes to Montana Wines, or what is now Brancott Estate. But over the years it is Cloudy Bay that has pretty much become synonymous, even shorthand, for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
Forty years after its first vintage in 1985, the iconic New Zealand winery is marking its milestone anniversary with the release of the Cloudy Bay 2025 Sauvignon Blanc: a bottle that feels like it’s taken a look behind, given the past a nod, and then proceeded to stride confidently forward.
This year’s release still captures the spirit of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that Hohnen first tasted all those years before. The growing season began early under cool, dry conditions that tested both patience and skill, before rewarding the winery with fruit of outstanding ripeness and balance. The result, says Technical Director and Winemaker Jim White, offered a wine that is “alive with the character of Marlborough — a reflection not just of the season, but of the enduring spirit of discovery that defines Cloudy Bay”.
In the glass, it’s quintessential Cloudy Bay — bright citrus and juicy white peach on the nose, underpinned by kaffir lime and freshly squeezed grapefruit. The palate follows through with lemon curd, makrut lime, and tropical fruit carried by mouth-watering acidity and a fine, mineral finish. Careful pruning, its Winemaking Director John Flanagan tells us, allowed the berries to receive more sunlight for proper ripeness; we taste it in the opulence and generosity of palate that beautifully counters its zingy acidity.
It’s graceful yet energetic, and a clarion reminder that Cloudy Bay’s strength has always been balance.
From that first 1985 vintage that made the world sit up and take notice, to the elegant confidence of its latest Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2025, it’s inspiring how one winery — and one extraordinary corner of Marlborough — forever changed how we think about Sauvignon Blanc.
What comes after forty? This isn’t the finish line. It’s just another sunrise over the Wairau Valley. For wine lovers it’s just more reason to look forward to new vintages that will continue to define, and redefine, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in the years to come.
The Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2025 is available at all good supermarkets and wine retail shops at a recommended retail price of S$56.
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