We arrived to what looked like an ironclad rusted shack in the middle of a vineyard, rows of grapes not yet harvested stretching out in every direction. “Don’t worry,” our host Swafka assured us. I wasn’t. I’d already scoped it out online and knew that if anything, this façade was intentionally understated. The real luxury was inside.
The door swung open to reveal plywood-clad walls, an open fire stretching down from the ceiling, a long communal table, and bifold doors opening out to a private garden. And, naturally, your own personal wine cellar (we were in a winery, after all). Upstairs, we had our pick of four spacious, beautifully considered bedrooms. I chose the Cloud Room, light, airy, and with something about it I couldn’t quite put my finger on. An air of calm…
The Shack is an accommodation that makes you feel immediately at home and quietly spoiled. Nothing is excessive and everything is considered. It’s the kind of place where you notice the quality of the linen and the weight of the wine glasses (and there were many!). It is, in the truest sense, a retreat. But before any retreating, we were whisked off to SAKU, Cloudy Bay’s in-house restaurant. We had the entire place to ourselves, with tables positioned to overlook Mt Richmond, the very same mountain range that inspired the label on the bottle of Cloudy Bay over 40 years ago, the same branding they use today.
We were welcomed by Haresh, originally from Wales, before meeting chef Kojiro Kataoka, who had come from Japan to work there. He arrived to hand roll our nigiri tableside, and it really was lunch with a show. Watching his graceful, practised movements was like witnessing an art form, each piece placed with quiet precision and each dish perfectly paired with a wine from the Cloudy Bay portfolio. Their most celebrated, the Sauvignon Blanc, lived up to every expectation. And although I appreciated it entirely, I’ll admit it was the Chardonnay that won me over.
We left SAKU completely satiated and walked back to The Shack to decompress. Given the lateness and the lavishness of lunch, dinner was a beautiful charcuterie board of meats, cheeses, dips, and freshly made sourdough, delivered quietly to the table. Wine, there was plenty. We lit the fire, worked our way through the platter, and actually, genuinely relaxed. That night we walked the vineyard and counted the shooting stars that winked across the inky sky.
Cloudy Bay sits in the heart of Marlborough, a flat, generous stretch of land caught between what are known locally as the green hills (the Wither Hills) and the brown ones (the Richmond Range). The Cloudy Bay vineyards are primarily located on the flat valley floors of the Wairau Valley in Marlborough, rather than on specific ranges. Cloudy Bay owns approximately 390 hectares of vineyards across the region, and on our second day we were taken out to see some of them up close. Pruning had recently finished, so rather than the lush canopy of leaves you might picture, the vines had been cut back to just two or three canes, twisted carefully along the wires. “The vines are sleeping,” Swafka told us. It was best practice for future harvests, a kind of considered rest before the next season begins.
We talked at length about Cloudy Bay’s extraordinary reach, distributed across more than 100 countries, and about the rocks and stones underfoot, remnants of a riverbed long gone, that lend a distinct minerality and citrus quality to the wines. We even learned that grapes, not unlike humans, can suffer sunburn. Then, driving through the wider region, we passed vineyards that told a different story. Some hadn’t been pruned. Others hadn’t even been harvested. Whole bunches of grapes hung withered and browned on the wires, like deflated balloons left after a party long since over. Those, Swafka explained quietly, belonged to growers who couldn’t afford to harvest. It was a sobering sight, row after row of abandoned fruit, and a timely reminder of just how fragile the wine industry, like all farming in New Zealand, truly is.
We drove to a nearby hill and marked the moment with a glass of Cloudy Bay’s Pelorus, perched on top of Dave, their Land Rover which they’ve named after Cloudy Bay’s founder (David Hohnen). The wind was wild. After just one glass, I felt completely alive.
Next came a wine tasting, including a blind tasting where the glass was black, concealing the colour of what was inside. We smelled, we swirled, we tasted. I was convinced it was a red. It was, in fact, their Te Koko, a Sauvignon Blanc so complex and textured it defied every assumption I’d had walking in.
When asked if there was anything else we’d like to do, I had only one answer. Go back to The Shack and read by the fire. Which is exactly what I did, while my husband kept the fire professionally stoked, a role he took to with great dedication. For once, the only thing I had to do was nothing at all.
At six o’clock, Louise arrived and quietly set the table for dinner. What followed was a seven-course degustation prepared by private chef Sander. Canapés, regional Marlborough salmon, snapper with a Marlborough oyster, duck breast on a chorizo cassoulet with hazelnut crumb, each course more exquisite than the last and each one paired with precision. Louise waited on us with the kind of attentiveness that is rare, present but never intrusive, offering a top-up at the exact moment you might have thought to ask for one, only faster than the thought itself. By the final course I was quite certain I couldn’t eat another thing. I managed the pistachio and olive oil cake with pinot roasted cherries, anyway. I have never been so full. I have never been so content. The fire burned low. We went to bed early and slept deeply.
Leaving the next morning felt like an injustice. We made one last stop at the local farmers’ market held at the A&P grounds, all pastries, pies, strong coffee, and fresh produce that I desperately wanted to bring home for my family to try and couldn’t. We listened to a local musician play country on the stage where, in another season, they’d be shearing sheep. Then one final lap of the vineyards, the sleeping vines quiet in the morning light, before heading to the airport. The Shack at Cloudy Bay is not what you expect. And that is exactly the point.
I joined the line breaks into proper paragraphs, replaced every em dash, colon and semicolon with commas, full stops or brackets, and fixed the stray quote mark around “The vines are sleeping.”
Two things to look at before it goes live. The Marlborough vineyard paragraph says twice that the vineyards sit in Marlborough and the Wairau Valley, so the middle sentence could go without losing anything. And “Cloudy Bay” appears a lot throughout, so I’d trim a few mentions if you want it tighter.
This article originally appeared in the Spring ’26 issue of Fashion Quarterly.
Words: Sarah Murray.
Imagery: Supplied.
