Kevin Judd

The Climb

Roseworthy Agricultural College gave Kevin Judd the formal base; Nearby winery (1980–1982) and Selaks in Marlborough, South Island (until 1984) gave him the fieldwork. Those early roles kept him close to the routine labor of wine before the label-side recognition arrived. In 1986, he became former founding winemaker at Cloudy Bay in Marlborough, a position that placed him inside a period when Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was still being defined. Since 2009, Kevin Judd has been winemaker of Greywacke, carrying that same region forward through a later chapter of the same craft.

Today

The work here is tied to place and to return. Kevin Judd’s record in New Zealand is built on that repeated commitment to Marlborough, where the region is not backdrop but the material of the job. Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2022 extends that line: a current release in the same grape and region that brought his name back into wider view. The continuity is practical rather than sentimental — one vineyard dialect, revisited in another vintage.

Signature

Kevin Judd’s signature wines cover Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir, Te Koko, Greywacke Wild Sauvignon Blanc, and Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2022. The list shows range across a winemaker’s body of work: Sauvignon Blanc as the anchor, Pinot Noir as a different register, and Te Koko and Greywacke Wild Sauvignon Blanc as named expressions that sit alongside the more direct Marlborough bottling. Together, they mark a career that has moved across style while staying legible through the same maker’s hand.

In Their Words “We established Cloudy Bay after David had seen what was being produced in Marlborough. I was both very excited and puzzled about the future of Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough. It was Sauvignon Blanc that attracted us to Marlborough.” “I was there from the beginning.” Read together, the remarks point to a founding role at Cloudy Bay and to the uncertainty that surrounded Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc at that time. The first line names the conditions around the project: what had been seen, what was being made, and what was still unresolved about the variety’s future. The second line is plain, and it matters for that reason; Kevin Judd’s place in the category was not retrospective but present at its making.

Recognition

In 2023, Wine Spectator named Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2022 its No. 10 wine of the year. Set against the earlier Cloudy Bay work, that recognition shows a through-line rather than a break: Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc first as a formative category, then as a current wine carrying the same region onto an international list.