Cirro Wines, founded by David Tyney and Richard Green, is a winery based in Marlborough, New Zealand. The name Cirro, represents “the highest of all clouds, with thin wispy feather-like tails formed by ice crystals.” The Cirrus clouds soar 25,000ft above New Zealand’s Southern Alps and the Marlborough region. Pure rain water falls into the rivers and soils of the Wairau Valley, allowing them to create distinctively fresh, vibrant cool climate wines. To date, Cirro Wines produces wines using traditional grape varieties of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris.

THE WINERY
—

SITUATED IN MARLBOROUGH, NEW ZEALAND

All grapes are sourced from the Wairau Valley in the Marlborough wine region. The Cirro ‘home block’ is situated close to Renwick in the middle of the Wairau Valley. Cirro Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is consistent from vintage to vintage, with minor variations found in each of the four vineyards from which grapes are grown. Organic viticulture and winemaking techniques are employed in all aspects of vineyard management. 

Warm days and cool nights during the harvest period produce very intense flavours in the grapes. Both David and Richard are very much ‘hands-on’ winemakers and spend quality time in the vineyard deciding what vineyard techniques to use during the growing season and determining the optimum time to harvest. This attention to detail produces consistently high-quality wines.

The People
—

Cirro wines are produced by winemakers David Tiney and Richard Green, a combined 35 years of winemaking experience. Both have worked extensively globally but their New Zealand experience is derived from the Giesen winery for David and Oyster Bay winery for Richard. They have brought this vast knowledge and experience into their winemaking to produce excellent, craft wines, expressive of their region. They create small production wines from four single vineyards of vines with a minimum age of 20 years.