Greywacke: Ten years on

The warmest vintage on record in Marlborough, 2018 also saw plenty of rain, including three inches during harvest. This Sauvignon is perhaps the most 'typical' wine in the range, using mostly cultured yeasts and stainless steel for a fresh, zesty Sauvignon with lime and nettle scents. The subtly textured palate is crisp and full of guava, blackcurrant leaf and a touch of passion fruit. There's a nice stony quality on the finish, with good length.

This first vintage of Greywacke Sauvignon is now displaying mulchy notes with some undergrowth and toffee scents, plus a touch of peach fuzz. In the mouth it's round and soft but with intense, saline acidity and flavours of herbs, passion fruit, more undergrowth, and some green fruits. It has held up well and is still fresh.

Greywacke (pronounced ‘Greywacky’) is the Marlborough label of Kevin Judd, one of the region’s pioneer winemakers after having directed the first 25 vintages at Cloudy Bay as their founding winemaker. Judd established Greywacke in 2009, named after the greywacke river stones found in the vineyards of much of the Wairau Valley, from which his fruit is sourced. This wine is made via a spontaneous indigenous yeast fermentation in mostly old French oak barrels, with occasional lees stirring. It was transferred out of oak just prior to the following harvest and then left on the lees for a further six months. Rebecca Gibb MW: A highly floral expression on the nose, exuding talc and rose petals, with a more delicate expression on the palate, remaining fine and focused throughout. Very pretty indeed. Roger Jones: A bright, zesty nose welcomes an elegant, seamless palate with restrained fruit, while at the same time offering complex notes of wet stone and guava. Gentle, yet tastes expensive. Phil Tuck MW: Lifted and concentrated with impressive depth, showing a delightful balance between a grassy varietal purity and a subtle oaky complexity. Really well done.

There's a touch of developed Sauvignon mulch character here, but much less than the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc. It's not as bright, but makes up for it with complexity: smooth aromas of toffee and rich candied citrus, with some nettle and herb lift, followed by flavours of zesty citrus and elderflower backed by tingly spice from yeast and barrel. Guava, nettle, mineral and subtle stone fruit flavours appear on the mid-palate, rounding out the body. An intriguing wine that still has life and could be a great food wine.

From two Chardonnay clones: 'Mendoza', which has great concentration, low yields but very high acidity, and 'Clone 95', which brings balance. This wine is fermented with wild yeasts in French oak barriques, 20% new, with a high proportion of solids. It underwent full malo to counteract the high acidity, giving a lovely creaminess to the palate. It's packed full of flavour, with intense bacon fat, spice and subtle tropical fruit. It sounds big on paper, but it's an elegant style that should age well.

The 2011 is in a lovely place now. It has a hint of reduced, struck-match aroma along with some herbaceousness, toffee and spice. There's a sweet note on the attack, followed up by saline acidity, buttery richness, a touch of nut and spicy black and white pepper. The long, mouthwatering finish develops delicious citrus and grapefruit complexity.

It's not often you see an oak-aged Riesling, but we are lucky to see this wine at all - bad weather meant that the ripeness was marginal, and it was only thanks to Kevin's wife, Kimberley, that it was picked; albeit just one tonne. It's from a single block of vines over 20 years old, all hand-picked. The bad luck just kept coming, and an accident meant that 80% of the juice was unusable, meaning that only 50 cases of the 2017 Riesling exist. It's a unique wine, marked by the vintage. The closed nose develops rich honey notes after a few minutes in the glass, leading to a delicious palate of green apple skin, lime zest, vinyl and some juicy satsuma. The texture is fairly soft thanks to the 16g/l of residual sugar, but the acidity makes itself apparent with a pH of 2.99. If you can find any, buy it!

A rough 50/50 split between cultured yeast in stainless steel and wild yeast in barrel, the wine was subsequently transferred to a stainless steel tank where the fermentation was stopped with 20g/l residual sugar remaining. It then spent six months on its lees in old barrels before bottling. The result is a more 'typical' Riesling than the calamitous 2017. It carries the sugar well, seeming a touch drier at first, offering up elegant flavours of apple, tangy lime and lanolin. A lovely wine which straddles the line between lean steeliness and rich oakiness perfectly.

This expression of Pinot Gris is fermented with a combination of cultured yeast in stainless steel and wild yeast in barrel, then matured for around seven months in barrel. It has a gentle, relaxed aroma of rosewater and just a hint of apricot. The soft, round palate carries 10g/l of residual sugar, characterised by its languorous acidity, grippy oak texture and rich pineapple and apricot flavours. Full and round, with great balance - this comes across as being drier than it really is.

Compared the the 2016, Greywacke's first vintage of Pinot Gris is more buttery and creamy, softer on the palate with rose, mulchy herbs and woody, stone fruit aromas.

Luscious apricot and black fig with exotic spice and dried orange peel. Tastes sweeter than the 105g/L residual sugar suggests, but in harmony with its acidity.

Kevin sourced these grapes from Cloudy Bay, spotting the botrytised fruit still hanging on the vine after harvest. He decided to purchase them and make them into a wine rather than let them go to waste. It has the classic Gewurz scent of rosewater and some sweet spice, accompanied by some apricot lushness and floral lift in the mouth. The palate is rich thanks to the 90g/l of residual sugar, but it's balanced well by a very fine, focussed vein of acidity. Beautiful.