New 2025 vintage Kumeu River Chardonnays
This would not look out of place at all in Puligny!" - Jancis Robinson, on 2025 Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay
If you've followed our previous offers from Kumeu, you'll know we think they stand out among even the best New Zealand estates, managing to deliver the quintessence of top white burgundy at amazing prices.
2025 is a superb vintage, possibly the best-ever for several cuvées, and with healthy quantities of most wines available, except for Coddington. Demand for the single-vineyard wines is always high, so we are once again requesting 'balanced orders' for these. The 2025 Estate and Ray's Road Chardonnays have scaled new heights, scoring 94 and 96 points respectively from Suckling, but remain astonishing value at just £95 per six in bond.
Winemaker Michael Brajkovich was New Zealand's first Master of Wine, and we feel this gives him a special insight into the wine style he is trying to achieve. We certainly notice this with other world-class MW-winemakers like Oliver Zind-Humbrecht and Michael Hill-Smith of Shaw & Smith.
Brajkovich says of the new vintage: "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."
All wines are in limited availability. Balanced orders requested for Single-Vineyard estate wines, 1:1 with Estate Chardonnay.
Offered ex-cellars, available October 2026.
| WHITE | 2025 | Kumeu River - Coddington Chardonnay | 75cl | £175 per case of 6 | Kumeu River Coddington Chardonnay 2025 / / 75cl £175 per case of 6 |
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Tasting Notes"25% new oak and otherwise just like the other single-vineyard Chardonnays. Milan Brajkovich has at last managed to sign a five-year lease with the absentee Asian owner who had been hoping to develop the site. Vines, 100% clone 15, are now 30 years old. A more open nose than the Estate! Sweet start and very approachable and flattering. The boudoir smell of a powder-puff impression and then a little fresh bitterness on the powerful finish. 2025-2037. 17 points." Jancis Robinson------"The 2025 Coddington Chardonnay is mineral, detailed, talcy and exciting. I always love this cuvée. It's not obviously powerful (though the clay soils in this vineyard do produce a wine of density), like Maté's, and it's not ripe and concentrated like the Hunting Hill; rather, this offers a lighter, more ethereal-noted wine. Like, it's quite "flowers and pith," "talc and cloth." It's a beauty, and never more so than in this brilliant 2025 vintage. The oak and fruit are gloriously harmonious here. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Drink Date: 2026 - 2045. 96 points." Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate------"Terrific aromas of terra cotta, sliced apple, flint, smoke and lightly cooked apple with puree. Medium-bodied with crunchy fruit and a white pepper and spice character. Luscious. From old vines planted in 1994. Always top. Drink or hold. 97 points" Jamessuckling.com |
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| WHITE | 2025 | Kumeu River - Estate Chardonnay | 75cl | £95 per case of 6 | Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay 2025 / / 75cl £95 per case of 6 |
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Tasting Notes"Sourced from six Kumeu vineyard sites, not all owned but definitely managed by the family. They have lost a couple of ingredients over the last few years so volumes have slightly decreased. This is Kumeu River’s most clonally diverse Chardonnay bottling. Whole-bunch pressed and 100% barrel fermentation (20% new) with ambient yeast. Aged 11 months. Looks quite substantial, even dense! Leaner on the nose than the Hawke’s Bay wines. Lots to chew on. The most ambitious Estate bottling yet. This would not look out of place at all in Puligny! Chalky texture on the finish. 2026-2032. 17+ points." Jancis Robinson------"Hailing from the exceptional 2025 growing season, the 2025 Estate Chardonnay leads initially with toasty/pencilly oak notes; however, the fruit on the palate is where the quality of the vintage is on show. Here we have yellow peach, sea salt, toasted sage leaf (even bay), quince, fig and white flowers. The acidity is prodigious, and this serves as a prop in the middle of the palate, providing real tension and fierceness to the otherwise ripe fruit. This is a very good wine, and the length through the finish is impressive. 13.6% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. 93 points." Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate------"Very aromatic, with white peaches and orchard blossom lifted by a touch of sourdough and wet clay. Medium-bodied, with brisk acidity setting the tone, subtle and delicate in feel with crisp freshness running through to a long, precise finish. Drink or hold. Screw cap. 94 points" Jamessuckling.com |
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| WHITE | 2025 | Kumeu River - Estate Chardonnay | Magnum | £110 per case of 3 | Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay 2025 / / Magnum £110 per case of 3 |
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Tasting Notes"Sourced from six Kumeu vineyard sites, not all owned but definitely managed by the family. They have lost a couple of ingredients over the last few years so volumes have slightly decreased. This is Kumeu River’s most clonally diverse Chardonnay bottling. Whole-bunch pressed and 100% barrel fermentation (20% new) with ambient yeast. Aged 11 months. Looks quite substantial, even dense! Leaner on the nose than the Hawke’s Bay wines. Lots to chew on. The most ambitious Estate bottling yet. This would not look out of place at all in Puligny! Chalky texture on the finish. 2026-2032. 17+ points." Jancis Robinson------"Hailing from the exceptional 2025 growing season, the 2025 Estate Chardonnay leads initially with toasty/pencilly oak notes; however, the fruit on the palate is where the quality of the vintage is on show. Here we have yellow peach, sea salt, toasted sage leaf (even bay), quince, fig and white flowers. The acidity is prodigious, and this serves as a prop in the middle of the palate, providing real tension and fierceness to the otherwise ripe fruit. This is a very good wine, and the length through the finish is impressive. 13.6% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. 93 points." Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate------"Very aromatic, with white peaches and orchard blossom lifted by a touch of sourdough and wet clay. Medium-bodied, with brisk acidity setting the tone, subtle and delicate in feel with crisp freshness running through to a long, precise finish. Drink or hold. Screw cap. 94 points" Jamessuckling.com |
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| WHITE | 2025 | Kumeu River - Hunting Hill Chardonnay | 75cl | £200 per case of 6 | Kumeu River Hunting Hill Chardonnay 2025 / / 75cl £200 per case of 6 |
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Tasting Notes"The finest and most burgundian of Kumeu River Chardonnays. From a 3.37-ha vineyard replanted in 2001. 25% new French oak. Although the acidity is more obvious in this wine than its stablemates, it always hits reaches 14% alcohol even though it is the first to be picked because the vineyard is so healthy and has no virus unlike, for example, Maté’s, which is the last to be picked because of virus. Much more restrained nose and more floral/ferny than fruity. Not exactly savoury but with very finely textured citrus juice and peel notes. Sappy, juicy, lip-smacking on the palate but high-toned on the nose. Definitely not sweet. Dry finish. Long, still-quite-chewy finish. 2028-2040. 17+ points." Jancis Robinson------"The 2025 Hunting Hill Chardonnay is ripe and thunderous, with salted peach, walnuts and stewed apple notes. This is flavorsome, opulent and impressively distinct from the Maté's tasted alongside—the vineyards are a stone's throw from each other. This is nettle-y, laden with apple skins and driven by fruit intensity. The acidity remains a concentrated and powerful player on stage here, as with all the Kumeu River cuvées. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Drink Date: 2026 - 2040. 94 points." Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate------"Floral and fragrant, with white blossoms and a touch of white pepper on top, joined by crushed stones and a hint of raw almond. Medium- to full-bodied and very textural, showing firmness, staying tense and vertical, with a beautiful interplay between the driving acidity and distinct minerality. Finishes stony and citrusy. Drink or hold. Screw cap. 95 points" Jamessuckling.com |
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| WHITE | 2025 | Kumeu River - Maté's Chardonnay | 75cl | £210 per case of 6 | Kumeu River Maté's Chardonnay 2025 / / 75cl £210 per case of 6 |
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Tasting Notes"35-year-old 100% Mendoza vines replanted in 1993, named after the late Maté Brajkovich, father of winemaker Michael and viticulturist Milan. Always the last to be picked because of virus. Rich and pineapple on the nose. Big and bold in a Kumeu context with a little bitterness on the end. A conundrum in that the nose is so exhibitionist yet it’s not that potent. This has traditionally been the most expensive Kumeu River Chardonnay but that convention dates from a time when big, bold wines were more fashionable than they are today. 2026-2036. 17 points." Jancis Robinson------"The 2025 Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay is powerful and nutty, with ripe orchard fruit. There are also notes of white pepper, pressed linen, green apple, chamomile and salted cashews. The palate is predictably powerful and unbelievably concentrated, with depth and length that feels interminable. This is an exceptional release of Maté's, one you should make every effort to taste. These wines age so well; don't acquire them with the expectation that they must be consumed soon. They have a decades-long future ahead, if only you have the patience. 13.7% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Drink Date: 2026 - 2045. 97 points." Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate------"Very aromatic with sliced lime, pear skin, chardonnay skin, white pepper and lilacs that follow through to a medium- to full-bodied wine with density in the center palate and a long finish of sliced apple and pear, salt and light nuts. Lightly flinty at the end. It is very open already but subtle. Drink now. Screw cap. 97 points" Jamessuckling.com |
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| WHITE | 2025 | Kumeu River - Ray's Road Chardonnay | 75cl | £95 per case of 6 | Kumeu River Ray's Road Chardonnay 2025 / / 75cl £95 per case of 6 |
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Tasting Notes"The 2025 Rays Road Chardonnay comes from the Hawke's Bay vineyard, and the nose leads with creamed cashew, white peach, citrus pith and salted caper brine. The palate is creamy and sleek, with bright acidity and talcy phenolics through the open-weave finish. There's a lot of unspent power here—it feels raw and unbridled somehow. This is impressive and quite different from the other cuvées, though it continues to bear the hallmarks of the Kumeu River house style. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Drink Date:2026 - 2040. 94 points." Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate------"Aromas of crushed stone and flint with subtle apple and transparency on the nose. Medium-bodied, with a solid core of fruit and a long, tangy finish. Vibrant and vivid chardonnay. Drink now. Screw cap. 96 points" Jamessuckling.com |
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