Head in the clouds
Continuing our series focusing on the classics, Dave Broom shines the spotlight on cult New Zealand producer Cloudy Bay.
It is not unusual these days to come across wines which, should their names appear on an Internet site, will guarantee an increase in the number of hits, whose name on the front of a magazine will sell extra copies, and whose new vintage is sold out by the time it hits the shelves. Any of the wines in this series can do that, but the difference in the case of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc is that this is a cult wine which sells at a low price - around £12 on-shelf.
This runs counter to the normal commercial goings-on in wine where, if a wine achieves cult status - or in the case of Bordelais garagistes, Barossans and Chileans, if a producer wants to make his wine a cult - the price is racked up to stratospheric heights. A high price tag doesn't just guarantee quality (allegedly), it confers a patina of elitism.
Not so in this instance. Cloudy Bay is affordable. Anyone, even a freelance journalist, can afford to buy a bottle (retail, that is - the mark-ups in restaurants are a disgrace). Is the producer mad?
It is to the credit of founder David Hohnen and owner Veuve-Clicquot (020 7235 8020) that Cloudy Bay's price has been kept to a sensible level - a philosophy which runs counter to the usual pricing strategies of Grand Marque Champagne houses.
Maybe they just don't feel New Zealand white wine, and a Sauvignon Blanc at that, can justify a £50 price tag; maybe it's altruism. But they can make their margin and guarantee to sell out every year. Whatever the case, Cloudy Bay is the greatest bargain in the world of cult wines. That's if you can find it. Cloudy Bay may not conform to the normal pricing structure of a cult wine, but it does comply with every other criterion, the most important being that it's bloody hard to find.
It has also managed to be perceived as the quintessence of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Why? Because it was the first wine to show the potential of this "new" winemaking country.
It all started when David Hohnen of Cape Mentelle discovered Kiwi wines in the early 1980s. Being based in Margaret River, he was already a man used to pioneering quality winemaking in unheard-of regions, though it wasn't so much a perverse streak in his nature which made him plant vines in the stony fields of Marlborough as a realisation of the very different flavour profile he could obtain from Sauvignon Blanc in this part of New Zealand's South Island.
The first Cloudy Bay Sauvignon was released in 1986 and immediately slapped the wine world around the chops. This was Sauvignon Blanc, but not as we knew it. Intense and piercing, it melded fresh green fruits with an exotic peapod/asparagus undertow. It was that rare thing in wine, a new and different flavour. The critics loved it.
Shift of power
The new generation of wine drinkers loved it, too, making it one of the first white wines to indicate a shift of power from Old to New World, and reflecting the emergence of a new, young wine drinker who valued flavour above appellation. This was a Sauvignon Blanc, for heaven's sake. It came from a country that most people didn't even think of as one which made wine. Of course, it helped that the name was evocatively romantic and the label was stylish and strangely dreamy, but if Hohnen and winemaker Kevin Judd had tried to do the same in the 1970s then no one would have paid any attention.
Cloudy Bay was the right wine at the right time - and, crucially, it was the first. Even today, there's only room for one cult Kiwi Sauvignon, and Cloudy Bay is it.
The irony is that Cloudy Bay isn't the only great Sauvignon Blanc in New Zealand. The wines from Hunter's, Isabel Estate and Villa Maria are as good, if not better, but how many of those sell out in the blink of an eye? You see, when you deal with a cult brand, normal rules don't apply. Quality isn't of prime importance to the consumer, the label is. To say, ‘I've got a case of Cloudy Bay' is to show that you're a brand junkie with your finger on the pulse of the wine zeitgeist and sufficient clout to get a case without any effort.
Don't get me wrong. The wine is good, and the mature vintages are excellent and have not only lasted the pace but have developed wonderfully rich and elegant depth of flavour. It's a wine which bursts with energy when young and which, unlike many of its countrymen, can stay the distance, but when cults are involved these issues are of secondary importance.
I doubt whether that was part of Hohnen and Judd's game plan.
