Record Marlborough harvest meets market challenges
In 1986 Hunter’s Wines shook up the wine world when it won the Sunday Times Vintage Festival in the United Kingdom with an oak aged Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough’s 1985 vintage.
It’s been more than 40 years since he made the first Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, and 16 years since the couple launched Greywacke, creating another iconic Marlborough wine label.
Kevin and Kimberley were both born in England, but moved to Australia when they were young. Kimberley went on to study politics and history at Adelaide University, and soon met Kevin, who’d taken up winemaking studies at Roseworthy College. In the third year of his studies, he worked the vintage at Chateau Reynella, south of Adelaide, with “larger-than-life” winemaker Geoff Merrill. “That’s when I realised it really was an interesting and really
cool industry.”
In February 1983, Kevin took a job with Selaks in West Auckland, with the couple planning to stay in New Zealand for three years. But the next year he met David Hohnen at a wine show, changing the course of the Judd’s lives, and of New Zealand’s wine story.
Kevin accepted an offer to be winemaker at David’s new Marlborough winemaking venture, and in 1985 the first Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc took the world by storm. Kimberley recalls being in the United Kingdom when the wines were first released there, and seeing the ripples created from Marlborough. “We were listening to this bunch of upper class English people going on about Cloudy Bay and thinking, ‘are we talking about the same place here?’”
Kevin stayed with Cloudy Bay for 25 years, his name synonymous with the label, but left in 2009 to launch Greywacke with Kimberley, in the midst of the global financial crisis. The first year he created seven wines and 6,000 cases, and 16 years on Greywacke is exported to more than 50 markets.
While Kevin’s father convinced him to study winemaking instead of photography, the two careers have run in parallel, with stunning images that have reflected Marlborough’s landscapes and vineyards across the seasons and years, including those in Kevin’s books The Colour of Wine, and The Landscape of New Zealand Wine. He has forged an international reputation for his photography, and earlier this year was named the Marlborough Living Cultural Treasure for 2025.
David Hohnen says Kevin is a perfectionist in winemaking, as he is with photography, always looking for the extra 1% in quality. And Kimberley has been a key part of the success, he adds. “They have been team Judd; there’s no doubt about it.”
