Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Welcome return to Marlborough wine
Alex Judd has always had an avid interest in wine and cuisine, having grown up surrounded by pivotal players of the Marlborough wine industry.
As a young lad, Alex soaked up an abundance of wine-related knowledge, thanks to his father Kevin Judd, Cloudy Bay’s founding winemaker, and his colleagues and fellow Marlborough wine legends James Healy and Ivan Sutherland.
While Alex couldn’t appreciate it at the time, that early influence piqued his interest and became an obsession he would follow throughout adolescence into adulthood.
“I was lucky to grow up in a very loving (if crazy) family, that was completely immersed in the wine world.”
As a teenager, he worked with some of the region’s culinary icons: restaurateur Alain Hauswirth; chef, cookbook author and educator Chris Fortune; and Chris and Heidi Gibb from the fine dining vineyard restaurant that burned down in 2011.
After finishing up at Marlborough Boys’ College, he moved to Wellington to study law and psychology, but it wasn’t long before the attraction of some of the capital’s best-known eateries, cafes and wine bars lured him back to hospitality.
After four years honing his craft as a barista at Memphis Belle, he joined the team at Noble Rot Wine Bar, where he worked under the tutelage of sommeliers Maciej Zimny and Joshua Pointon, refining
his palate through in-house sommelier programmes and WSET.
“I’ve always had a highly sensitive nose and palate – a blessing if you’re a winemaker, but absolutely horrible when you’re an eight-year-old within a certain radius of a Malaysian fish market,” he laughs.
After a few years he moved to wine sales with Great Little Vineyards. “Dad always said I had to get out of Marlborough for 10 years and gain some experiences for myself before working with him,” Alex says.
“When I was selling wine, I was always trying to steal shelf space from dad’s label, Greywacke. That’s when I realised, maybe it was time to come back to Marlborough.”
Since returning to Marlborough in 2018, the 30-year-old has completed six vintages at Greywacke, working alongside his
father and Greywacke winemaker Richelle Tyney, as well as one vintage at Franz Haas in Alto Adige, Northern Italy.
Greywacke shares winemaking facilities with Auntsfield, Settlement, and Dog Point Vineyards in Hawkesbury, and its Greywacke headquarters. These collaborative environments are how Alex, “a people person”, learns best.
“Aside from dad, I’ve been lucky to work alongside and learn from some amazing winemakers over the past few years, including Richelle, Murray Cook [Dog Point winemaker], Luc Cowley [Auntsfield winemaker] and Steven Planthaber [Settlement general manager],” Alex says.
“Everyone is very approachable and generous with their time and knowledge. I feel very comfortable asking questions if I don’t know something, it’s really been an amazing learning experience.”
Working in a small team and having to do “a bit of everything” is great for learning, but it can be stressful during vintage, when the winery is often operating 24 hours a day on a skeleton crew. But seeing the results at the end is every bit as satisfying as having the opportunity to work alongside his family.
“It can be challenging working with your parents, but coming home and working on the business has brought me and dad closer,” he says. “He was always super busy when we were growing up so it’s nice to spend some time with him and my mum – our relationship has really blossomed.”