在我掌控Seagram蒙大拿州的早期，我有幸品尝了其马尔堡长相思葡萄酒产品线，这一系列可以追溯到1979年和1980年生产的第一个年份。尽管蒙大拿州是1975年首次种植长相思的生产商，并于1973年在马尔堡购买了约1620公顷农田，但马尔堡其他早期投资者之一是大卫霍南，他于1985年建立了云湾酒厂，成为该地区前五家酒厂之一。Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc很快成为了新西兰名声大噪的葡萄酒风格。Cloudy Bay刚刚推出了2022年的长相思葡萄酒，本月初，现任酿酒师Daniel Sorrell也与他一起从2015年收获以来一直保存的一些旧瓶长相思葡萄酒进行对比和比较。这部分是为了观察葡萰演变，并证明与许多人的预期相反，新西兰长相思可以以令人兴奋的方式陈酿。
最近，在Cloudy Bay所有长相思图书馆库存中品尝并重新装瓶，只保留自己满意的葡萄酒，Sorrell选择了他认为特别适合陈酿的几批年份——2003、2006和2019。他热衷于强调Cloudy Bay今天不是马尔堡“较大的”生产商之一，从Hohnen在80年代中期最初购买土地以来，它就没有搬过葡萄园，他们的产量也低于该地区许多酿酒厂。
"We in Marlborough are different from others," Sorrell said. "We're small, and we only have vineyards in the Wairau Valley. They're on ancient riverbeds, on free-draining alluvial soils. We aim to get more than 12 tons per hectare. We like to pick early but are looking for material and flavor."
Although Cloudy Bay sells out its wines every year, Sorrel believes this method is crucial for maintaining the brand's image.
"In a year like 2021, which was the best of my seven years at the winery, only 4-5% of grapes didn't make it into wine," he said. "This year (2022), it was 25%. In 2017, it was almost 30%. As part of Moët Hennessy, we feel very lucky [to be able to achieve this]."
"This has been a quite wet season; usually it's not that wet," Sorrell continued. "There could be a big harvest after flowering succeeds." The vineyard practiced widespread pruning to create the best balance among grapevines.
"Partly because of this, we can harvest early because fruit ripens faster than usual — which was important this year when we managed to pick most before rain set in; we only lost one block of grapes." He added that having three harvesting machines made everything easier: "Everything is close by so we can quickly bring grapes in."
"This has been a challenging harvest season; however, the vintage proves that adversity brings about the best results. In these harder times, I truly saw our vineyards' strength and importance — despite bad weather conditions yet producing perfect fruit — really outstanding."
Historically experienced harsh weather conditions after harvesting had come earlier than ever before. The selection relied on taste rather than quantity: seeking berries with citrus flavors such as orange or lemon zest along with slight saltiness and pepperiness while maintaining pleasant acidity mainstays without tropical fruit flavors akin to pineapple since these wines would quickly deteriorate fastly divided into segments apart from each other as well as individual parts separated within containers without any form or shape resembling their original appearance now changed beyond recognition they were once together united now forever divided never again reunited as they once were during their life cycle fully ripe ready for consumption at last but not least simply disappeared vanished gone nowhere no trace left behind none existed anymore
