Picton, New Zealand 2020 – The Cloudy Bay Winery

Guess where we went today.

On the way to Cloudy Bay Winery from our port at Picton we stopped for a pleasant visit at the Upton Oaks known for its gardens.

Like most wineries, Cloudy Bay is lovely just to walk around and enjoy the vistas.

However the reason we were here is that this winery made New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and, indeed, the Marlborough wine region, famous  giving it a reputation as one of the great Sauvignon Blanc regions of the world.

Of course there was the usual wine tasting, and here it was in quite a nice location.

Here are some important New Zealand sauvignon blanc (“SB”) metrics:

*New Zealand SB has really only been renown since 1985.

*New Zealand is tiny (about 1.5% of USA population) and produces only about 1% of the world’s wine. Yet it is now second, only to France, in SB production.

*90% is exported and it sends the most to the USA.

* New Zealand wine production has grown at a rate of 17% per annum this century.

In 1913 Cloudy Bay was purchased by the $200 billion luxury conglomerate LVMH.

And sadly we are at yet another port with logs earmarked for China just piling up and causing economic havok.