2014 Chardonnay

Cloudy Bay became the first Marlborough producer to make a major bet on Central Otago Pinot Noir when the winery established a 23-hectare project in 2010, signing long-term leases on the Northburn and Calvert Vineyards in the Cromwell basin, sharing the latter with Felton Road. As to Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which put Cloudy Bay on the map in the late ‘80s—and vice-versa--the estate now benefits from 25-year-old vines around the winery outside Blenheim.

During my tasting at Cloudy Bay at the beginning of February, Daniel Sorrell, who took over as Operation Winemaker at Cloudy Bay before the 2015 vintage (Tim Heath is Senior Winemaker), told me that he "prefers wines with more precision and structure, with a corset around the fruit." He’s now using a higher percentage of demi-muids--as opposed to barriques--for the Te Koko bottling, as he feels that the wine "should scream varietal definition and substance—place character more than simply fruit." Te-Koko, which comes from lower-yielding, older vines (70% estate and 30% purchased fruit), is harvested by hand and vinified with wild yeasts. Cloudy Bay will also be reducing the percentage of malolactic fermentation for this wine in future vintages.