Tall poppies and the Peter principle: Cloudy Bay goes global

Forty years on from Cloudy Bay’s first vintage, the second instalment of our two-part series focuses on the winery’s rise to world renown, the departures of David Hohnen and Kevin Judd, and life under Veuve Clicquot and Moët Hennessy. Richard Woodard reports. Cloudy Bay may have put Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc on the map, but there was a little more to the winery’s first few vintages than met the eye. “Those ’85, ’86, ’87 wines, they were mostly Sauvignon Blanc, but there was a bit of Riesling and Chardonnay in there too, but because Sauvignon Blanc is such a dominant variety, we could do that,” recalls David Hohnen, the Aussie inspired to establish Cloudy Bay by a serendipitous encounter with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at Cape Mentelle. Cloudy Bay’s inaugural vintage in 1985, with winemaker Kevin Judd on board, hit the market in March 1986, with the 1986 wine following that October. “Cashflow was king and the wines were good,” Hohnen says. In the UK especially, Cloudy Bay was an instant hit with influential critics like Oz Clarke, who wrote in his book Red & White that its first vintage “forever changed our view of what white wine could and should taste like”. Within a decade, it would make Wine Spectator’s top 10 wines of the year. The hype was fuelled by the wine’s apparent rarity, with eager UK buyers pleading with Majestic store managers to set them aside a case, and bottles whipped off shelves pretty much as soon as they landed. This, in turn, led to the kind of criticism that only the tallest of poppies can attract. “People thought the scarcity was contrived – it was never contrived,” insists Hohnen. “We never stretched beyond our capacity to make the best-quality wine. It was a wine made without compromise, and the quantities were quite constant. It was a long time before we got to 100,000 cases.” Judd concurs. “We were sometimes accused of being chocolate box marketers, and that was all rubbish. We were accused of being scarcity marketers – also rubbish.” Phylloxera and frost were ravaging Marlborough’s vineyards at the time. “In 1995, we sold half our production as bulk because it wasn’t good enough,” recalls Judd. He continues: “There was never enough. The market grew and we had huge support from the English media in particular. The English media loved us, partly because we were just honest guys making the best wine we could. We had a really cool label, cool name and credibility behind the team. We delivered – we delivered quality over the years that was never doubted.” It didn’t take long for one of the industry’s big hitters to take note. Hohnen met Veuve Clicquot president Joseph Henriot in Paris, Henriot visited Cape Mentelle and, only five years after Cloudy Bay’s first vintage, the talks began. In 1991, Clicquot – then run with a measure of independence from the bigger LVMH empire – bought a majority stake in Cloudy Bay and Cape Mentelle, with Dave and Mark Hohnen retaining a minority shareholding. Cloudy Bay was now in a different league: preparing for his first trip to the UK under Clicquot ownership, Hohnen visited Perth’s finest men’s outfitter and walked out with a Zegna suit. With hindsight, that might have been a harbinger of what was to come. The Peter Principle By 2003, the Hohnens had sold out to LVMH entirely, exiting the business. But why? “Have you heard of the Peter principle?” asks Hohnen. “It’s the idea that people get promoted to a point where they’re no longer competent – well, not so much not competent, more not enjoying it. I’m a winemaker, a hands-on winemaker, and there I am flying around the bloody world selling my wine. I came home and the dog would bite me, and the wife would be bloody angry with me.” So he walked away. For two decades. “In about 2022, I said: ‘Dave, time to reconnect with Cloudy Bay – you’ve ignored it for 20 years.’” He pauses and smiles. “Actually, they found me. The original cellar is now a visitor centre. They’ve done a beautiful job, and they’ve called it the Founder’s Cellar. They invited me over when they opened it, and I went back there again for their 40th [in March 2025].” Judd was invited to the birthday party too (but was travelling), having also departed Cloudy Bay in the years after the sale to LVMH, and having set up his own, highly successful Marlborough operation, Greywacke, in 2009. Neither man has a word of criticism about Cloudy Bay’s ‘new’ proprietors. Describing Clicquot as “the perfect owner”, Hohnen says: “They managed the brand beautifully; they managed the distribution beautifully. They backed us up in every way. They were less excited by Cape Mentelle, but they put on a good front of it.” Cloudy Bay today is run by estate director Yang Shen, a trained winemaker who has been with the business for nine vintages. “Cloudy Bay always follows the spirits of David Hohnen and Kevin Judd,” he says. “They had fear of nothing, daring to challenge the status quo. But it’s a Kiwi spirit as well – if we try to do it, we try to do it really well.” Progressively, Cloudy Bay has permeated a growing number of global markets, but Shen believes the work is still far from done. “People trust this wine and never forget, and those things replay in every corner of growing markets like China and Korea. We sent our first containers to Brazil two years ago, India one year ago … Clicquot brought this product to the US and Japan, then LVMH brought this wine to Asia. This is an exact repeat. Every successor just repeats what the spirit of Cloudy Bay is doing.” There have been changes under Shen’s tenure, most notably with Te Koko, the wild ferment, oak-aged Sauvignon that is only made in the best vintages. “I found the old Te Koko style needed some modernisation,” Shen explains. “We have an ambition to compete with the best, the top worldwide Sauvignon Blancs. We want to put Te Koko next to Silex or Vacheron.” Changes have spanned viticulture and winemaking, from yield control and adjusting malolactic fermentation to different oak formats and the use of cement tanks – partly inspired by Shen’s travels to the likes of Vacheron, Clos Henri and Mellot in the Loire. Cloudy Bay has also forayed south, adding to its stable of Sauvignon Blanc, Te Koko, Chardonnay, Marlborough Pinot Noir and sparkler Pelorus with Te Wāhi, a Central Otago Pinot. Shen likens the winery’s Marlborough Pinot to the Côte Chalonnaise, with Te Wāhi closer to Pommard or Volnay. But Cloudy Bay’s story will always be a Sauvignon story. It’s an association that Judd has perpetuated at Greywacke and one that, now in his 70s, Hohnen has returned to with Marlborough Heartland, a wine made in association with his daughter Freya, old friend Rupert Clevely (ex-Clicquot) and the Marlborough Grape Growers Cooperative. Hohnen’s enthusiasm, 40 years on, is undimmed: “The winemaker [Drew Ellis] is superb. I tasted through his wines and I thought: ‘Oh boy – these are very, very good.’” The wine is currently listed at UK supermarket Sainsbury’s. What is it about Sauvignon Blanc? “It’s expressive, easy to understand and immediate,” says Hohnen in a flash. “You can enjoy one glass, then have another. It’s just straightforward. Sauvignon Blanc is just every person’s wine, I reckon. It speaks for itself and it often speaks for its region – and, to me, that’s what wine’s all about.” And what was it about Cloudy Bay? “I’ve been asked this so many times,” says Judd. “I think we were in the right place at the right time – no doubt about that. That was luck, and not luck. Dave saw the opportunity and we set up the company. I think we were just a bunch of people trying to make the best wine we could. “They were fantastic times, extraordinary times. We had so much fun, and we had a great team. There was loads of mucking around, but at the end of the day we were there, we made good wine, we worked hard and we delivered.”