2023 Greywacke Wild Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough

A wine for pausing and taking it all in. This is alluring with its passionfruit gels, tangerine and lemon myrtle oil. Some frangipani and candle wax. Dried hay and barley crop. The palate extends the robust flavour of grilled nuts and manuka honey, with good skin and oak texture. Some bitter orange on the finish. A wine with lots of detail and complexity. Drink to 2030.

95 points & Special Value Shanteh Wale for Halliday Wine Companion, April 2026

The 2023 Wild Sauvignon leads with a layered nose of crushed nuts, pineapple husk, licorice and white chocolate. On the palate, the wine is creamy and spicy, with lashings of concentrated fruit flavor and length throughout the finish. This wine routinely cellars with exceptional grace, and this vintage appears to be no different. The 2023 growing season was cool and wet, although the presence of the mountain range, which effectively divides the region in half, had a positive impact on the Awatere Valley, to the east of the main Wairau. While the 2023 season will be forever etched onto the hearts of the producers in Hawkes Bay (and the North Island in general) as the year of Cyclone Gabrielle, the South Island fared much better, and the wines in general have been lovely, detailed things, as this is. Drink to 2040.

95 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, April 2026

Creamy vanilla oak is wrapped in layers around a well-defined core of green apple, grapefruit and wet stone flavours. The palate has subtlety and elegance, yet also lovely definition, provided by carefully measured acidity which creates an impression of length and linearity. Despite the oak being noticeable, it sinks below the complex fruit, letting the wine finish with stony persistence rather than woodiness. Drink to 2030.

94 points Stephen Wong for The Real Review, October 2025

Savoury, smokey and saline, the 2023 Wild Sauvignon is taut and tense, almost un-Marlborough-like, but over the course of 24 hours it reveals passion fruit and elderflower notes. If you haven't got that sort of time on your hands, pull out the decanter. The wine's sophistication comes not from its flavours but its shape and athletic acid profile. The texture intrigues with its focus and push-and-pull tension. The lip-smacking, medium-long finish is drawn out with smokey and floral talc as well as classic passion fruit and elderflower. Young but eminently drinkable, this has the concentration and structure to go on for a decade or more. Another success story for this bottling. Drink to 2033.

93 points Rebecca Gibb for Vinous, February 2026

Greywacke Wild Ferment Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough is one of the most distinctive and textural white wines in New Zealand, crafted by Kevin Judd, the legendary founding winemaker of Cloudy Bay and now the creative force behind Greywacke. This cuvée is a completely different take on Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, born from Judd’s desire to show the grape in a more complex, layered and Bordeaux inspired style. The fruit comes from mature vineyards in the Southern Valleys and Wairau Valley where deep greywacke river stones, loam and clay soils deliver ripeness, perfume and structure. These parcels are harvested a touch later than for classic Sauvignon Blanc to capture richer fruit and deeper phenolic expression.

The hallmark of Wild Ferment is its winemaking. Grapes are whole bunch pressed and fermented with indigenous yeasts in old French oak barrels, many of which are neutral, to encourage texture, savoury depth and a soft oxidative edge. Ferments can take months to finish, driven naturally by ambient yeasts. The wine then ages on lees with stirring to build creaminess while maintaining tension. This slow, wild, barrel based approach gives the wine its smoky, flinty, layered personality and has made it one of Marlborough’s most respected alternative styles.

In the glass it shows a pale straw colour. The nose is wonderfully complex with ripe nectarine, white peach, lemon curd and passionfruit layered over flint smoke, struck match, wild herbs and cracked stone. Beneath the fruit sit savoury notes of lanolin, toasted almond, beeswax and gentle spice from barrel fermentation. As it opens, citrus blossom, fennel, guava and subtle honeyed tones emerge, giving the bouquet remarkable depth and nuance.

The palate is textural, concentrated and beautifully balanced. Vibrant citrus and stone fruit glide across a creamy yet taut mid palate shaped by long lees contact. Flavours of lemon, peach, grapefruit pith and subtle tropical hints interweave with flinty minerality, smoky complexity and a faint nutty richness. Acidity is bright and pure, carrying the wine through a long, savoury, slightly saline finish with lingering citrus, herbs and gentle oak spice. It has the ageing potential of a fine white Bordeaux, easily developing for five to eight years with more honey, toast and waxy depth.

Pair it with seared scallops, roast chicken with tarragon, buttery lobster, miso glazed salmon, creamy pasta with herbs, goat cheese, grilled asparagus, mushroom dishes or rich seafood. Its combination of tension and texture makes it one of Marlborough’s great food wines.