KUMEU RIVER MATÉ’S VINEYARD CHARDONNAY 2025

The Brajkovich family have carved out a reputation second to none for Chardonnay and every new release adds to that reputation.

The 2025 vintage is up there with one of the best ever for Kumeu River, however quantities are well down so our allocation is very limited. Now is your chance to access this world-class wine!

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate
"If you can taste history, duty, and family pride in a glass, it’s there in the Kumeu River Chardonnays… now producing some of New Zealand’s greatest Chardonnays, not to mention the world’s."

Winery notes (2025 Vintage)
"In 1990, Maté Brajkovich reworked the land and planted a new vineyard of Chardonnay vines on the site of the original vineyard that he and his family purchased in March 1944. The first grapes from this vineyard were harvested in March 1993, the year following Maté's death. The resulting wine was released in November 1994 to coincide with celebrations marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Brajkovich Family's arrival at Kumeu River.

2025 was a remarkably dry harvest season. We started with the early Sparkling Wine varieties in perfect condition on 4 February. One week later we had 17mm, just before we commenced the table wine harvest. After that, it was pretty much dry all the way through the rest of Vintage on 17 March. This year we are particularly excited about the Chardonnay wines from both regions, and especially the Single Vineyard wines which are keenly typical of their sites."

Rated Outstanding & 98/100 Cameron Douglas MS, August 2026 (2025 Vintage)
"Taut, closed, complex and very very new. Aromas and flavours of ripe white fleshed fruits with a sweet citrus pith note, fine lees and layers of gentle wood spices. A very focused and complex wine, one to visit several times over a day or two. Taut and delicious."

96/100 Gary Walsh, The Wine Front, August 2026 (2025 Vintage)
"Almond meal, salted cinnamon-laced pastry dough, white peach and lime, cut fennel and white flowers, just a feathering of stuck match, but less than many vintages. It’s smooth and mealy, a honey gloss and nuttiness to the wine, acidity has juiciness and vigour, but it’s calm and well-settled, lime and peach carries on a saline finish of excellent length. A wine of richness and composure with a flinty exit. It’s all just so. A beautiful thing."