Kumeu River
Kumeu River Village Chardonnay 2024
Reviews
The Wine Advocate 92/100
The 2024 Village Chardonnay had just been freshly bottled when I tasted it at the estate in Kumeu in March 2025. The other 2024 Chardonnays were tasted as tank samples prior to filtration and bottling soon. The wine leads with yellow citrus and crushed shells. It is texturally fine, sleek and tightly coiled around a core of salty acidity. It is complex but composed and very good.
"2024 was a fantastic year, just very small," says Paul Brajkovich. "Weather during flowering wasn't good in spring in 2023," says Michael Brajkovich. "Ripening in 2024 was excellent, so we have a 40% down in yield but very high quality. The Village wine is a blend of Kumeu and Hawke's Bay [and is] a mixture of barrel and tank fermentation." Tasting in verticals, like I did with the Brajkovich family at Kumeu River, reveals learnings that would otherwise be inaccessible. Firstly, I learned that Maté's looks like Maté's regardless of the season. It is the most distinct of the single vineyards, and it endures through all seasons. I learned that the Estate Chardonnay ages far better than I had given it credit for, and it seems that a good vintage of this wine will live for two decades instead of just one, as I had initially thought. I learned that the dominance of Coddington or Hunting Hill vineyard Chardonnays see-saws each season—for my palate—and while I find these two to be more seasonally variable, the rewards are high when they are on song. These are extraordinarily long-lived wines, and according to Paul Brajkovich, the most ideal drinking window opens at around eight years from harvest. There is very little correlation between warm and cool years being pinned to even or odd numbered vintages, and the weather here experiences everything from tropical storms, frost, dry spells and cyclones.
