NOVUM RIVERBLOCK VINEYARD CHARDONNAY 2024

We often see new releases and labels that 'fly under the radar'. Small production wines that deserve special mention but not made in volumes that we can shout about. Novum is the new label for William Hoare (ex-Fromm) and Rachel Jackson-Hoare in Marlborough utilizing fruit from family and closely associated vineyards. Two wines have been released so far – this Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir. Both are exceptional wines, but very, very limited in availability.

Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"With a youthful pale gold hue, this is a finely concentrated, elegant Chardonnay. The nose opens to a heady combination of pineapple, pear and citrus, along with a fresh minerality beautifully underpinned by subtle creamy nutty oak, brioche, nougat and hints of cinnamon. The palate follows, offering at the heart a satisfying combination of lemon curd sweetness, orange zest and softer savoury notes of hazelnut and sour dough, balanced by a crisp, mineral acidity and linearity driving a long, lingering finish.

The grapes were hand-harvested, then whole-bunch pressed using a very gentle press cycle. A small addition of sulphur was added at the press to protect the wine from oxidising. The juice was cold settled for 12 hours before being transferred to barrel (10% new oak) with light lees for a wild fermentation. Post fermentation, the wine remained on lees in barrel, and stirred monthly on the full moon. After 13 months, the wine was gently transferred out of barrel for bottling. No fining agents were added – just a small amount of bentonite for clarification and sulphur to ensure the wine will age well. Bottled March 2025."

95/100 & Top 100 New Zealand Wines of 2025, JamesSuckling.com (2024 Vintage)
"This has a very elegant and subtle character, offering delicate stone fruit with a flinty note and a touch of pineapple, chamomile and lemon peel. Medium to full-bodied, tense and vertical, it’s almost weightless, showing excellent balance between freshness and power. Crystalline minerality with a lift of citrus in the finish. Long and pristine. Drink or hold."

Rated Outstanding & 95/100 Cameron Douglas MS, December 2025 (2024 Vintage)
"Fantastic wine, taut and youthful with a bouquet of flinty fresh stone and citrus fruits, a positive gentle reductive layer and mineral fine lees complexities. A dry wine with plenty of weight and satin mouthfeel, flavours range from white apricot and peach to apple and sweet grapefruit. Layers of wood introduce fine tannins and a natural wood sweetness as well as complexity and length. Well made with best drinking from day of purchase through 2032+."

94+/100 Erin Larkin, RobertParker.com, Wine Advocate, April 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"The 2024 Chardonnay is excellent. It's toasty and spicy, lean and nutty, with green apple acidity and attractive waxy phenolics that shape the mid-palate and finish. This is a beautiful wine, made as a result of thoughtful farming and endeavour. It has personality and charm, alongside length of flavour and complexity to boot. It's leaner and less obviously "worked" than many Chardonnays I see coming out of Marlborough. This is super and comes recommended. 14% alcohol, sealed Diam and wax."

94/100 Stephen Wong MW, The Real Review, October 2025 (2024 Vintage)
"Subtle flint and roasted pistachio notes give way to an unusually aromatic chardonnay with a vibrant, exotic fruit character reminiscent of pomegranate and pomelo over more familiar grapefruit and red apple flavours. The mid-weight palate is sleek and slippery, flowing easily over gentle notes of cinnamon oak before joining the amalgam of cashew, cloves and cream on the finish. An elegant wine which will soon shed its flinty shell and reveal more layered subtlety over the mid-term."

93+/100 Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, June 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"There’s ample flavour to be tucked into here. It’s a stylish wine, and a persistent one, but the mid palate lets rip. Pineapple, stonefruit, cooked apple and cedar-spice flavours come inflected – but no more than that – with flint, sweet pear and peach. There’s a bit of the old ‘two-fruits” about this, in a good way. It’s fresh, it flows, and it offers plenty. It hones nicely through the finish as well. All good things."

94/100 Susie Barrie MW & Peter Richards MW (UK), Susie & Peter New Zealand Wines of the Year 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"Novum is the brainchild of Will and Rachel Hoare – Will’s first love is apparently Pinot, while Rachel fell in love with Chardonnay while working with Burgundy greats Véronique Drouhin and Dominique Lafon. The pair have been resolutely ambitious in terms of quality right from the outset, and you definitely get a feel for that with this subtly crafted, classy Chardonnay. It’s sourced from a block in the central Wairau Plains that’s reputed to be one of the oldest in the region, possibly planted around 1979 or 1980. It’s entirely Mendoza clone, which gives naturally intense, structured fruit, and the site is relatively warm, so good for ripening Chardonnay properly. The 2024 vintage was a warm one but low-yielding and with cool nights, hence depth of flavour but good underlying freshness. The wine spent 13 months in barrel (10% new). Aromatically it’s relatively restrained, with hints of roasted nut, baked fennel and creamy citrus rind. The acidity is mouth-watering, and flavours of roasted peach are framed by a creamy texture."