2024 Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir, Marlborough

A solid pinot noir with strawberry and cedar aromas and flavors, with hints of dried flowers and white pepper that follow through to the palate. Medium-bodied. Creamy, polished tannins and a savory finish. Clean and pretty. Drink now.

94 points James Suckling, August 2026

Fruit for Cloudy Bay’s Pinot Noir is sourced from the rolling north-facing slopes of Marlborough’s Southern Valleys region.

From the cool and dry 2024 season, the fruit for this wine was optically machine sorted before being gravity-fed into open-topped stainless steel fermentation vats. With an average of 23 days of skin contact, the musts were gently plunged throughout the fermentation, and the pressed wine matured for eleven months in French oak barrels of which 30% were new.

About this producer

Established by David Hohnen and Kevin Judd in 1985, its is hard to imagine what Marlborough would have been without the impact that Cloudy Bay had when its first vintages of Sauvignon Blanc arrived on the world stage.

Today it is a substantial operation that sits within the LVMH group of luxury brands and retains a significant presence in Marlborough with extensive vineyard holdings supplemented by numerous leased and contracted vineyards. More recently, two organically farmed Central Otago Pinot Noir vineyards have also been brought into fold.

Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc still accounts for the majority of the production, with much smaller volumes of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the Pelorus sparkling wines.