Winemaker Notes
Mate’s Vineyard is always set apart from the other Kumeu River Chardonnays with its lifted sweet fruit aroma that is akin to pears. On the palate we see the extra concentration, and length of flavour but the wine still seems refined and taut. Certainly a wine that will benefit from bottle age of 4-10 years.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This top bottling from the oldest vines is a powerful wine wound into a complex yet contained mode. It has plenty of savory hazelnut and biscuit aromas that combine with orange hints and flinty moments in the glass. The palate's fuller than the others, really fleshy and packed with peach flavors. A wine that demonstrates a sense of weight as it heads to the convincing finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay performs just as you'd expect, showing the intersection of a ripe vintage through the lens of this powerful vineyard planted to the Mendoza clone. Unlike the youthful rambunctiousness of the 2014 Hunting Hill, this is complete. It has found stillness and calm in the 11 years from harvest, and the wine feels merely as if it is settling into its long future. Like sitting in a comfortable chair, there's no saying when you might get up. This has that same patient air about it.
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Vinous
The 2014 Chardonnay Maté's Vineyard offers lemon sorbet and ice cream cornet. It's still toasty and smoky, with cloves, nectarine, and flint, and it's oh-so young. It's a meal in itself, with its almost chewy nature. Incredibly, this is ten years old. There is still plenty of substance, and I'd suggest you don't want to drink this yet. It's long and flavorsome.
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Wine Spectator
Lemon curd, spice and verbena flavors are deep and detailed while still vividly crisp, the spice accents gaining momentum on the long finish.
Founded in 1944 by Mick Brajkovich, wife Katé and son Maté, Kumeu River was one of the early pioneers in Auckland, New Zealand, that helped to establish its reputation as a world-class wine region. Still family owned and run, Kumeu River continues to pioneer new frontiers: winemaker Michael Brajkovich became New Zealand’s first member of the prestigious Institute of Masters of Wine, London, they have been testing and championing screw cap closures for close to 20 years and the winery has gone on to become the globally recognized benchmark for non-Burgundy produced Chardonnay. All Kumeu River wines are hand-harvested, whole bunch pressed and demonstrate exclusive use of indigenous yeast fermentation.
The Chardonnays of Kumeu River have gained a strong foothold within the international market, continuously and consistently receiving outstanding accolades. The winery is a globally recognized benchmark for age-worthy Chardonnay outside of Burgundy.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Grape-growers in the local subregions of Clevedon, Matakana and Waiheke Island, focusing on vineyard techniques to maximize quality, are producing very fine Bordeaux Blends from local grapes. Auckland is also an industrial area where winemakers can produce quality wines based on sourced grapes from neighboring regions.