Kumeu River: Creating ageworthy Chardonnays

Kumeu River Winery is a cornerstone of New Zealand’s winemaking legacy. It stands as a testament to the vision and dedication of the Brajkovich family, beginning with the migration of Mick and Kate Brajkovich from Croatia to New Zealand in 1907.

Settling initially to dig kauri gum in the small settlement of Kumeu, 20km northwest of Auckland, the Brajkovichs transitioned to viticulture in 1944.

Their purchase of a small vineyard estate would lay the foundation for one of the world’s most celebrated Chardonnay producers.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for a Kumeu River Chardonnay vertical

Today, Kumeu River spans 30ha of family-owned vineyards, supported by 10ha of contract vines. The winery is acclaimed for its Burgundian-style Chardonnays, crafted from its iconic vineyard sites, including Maté’s Vineyard, Hunting Hill and Coddington.

Family affair

The Brajkovichs’ family ethos infuses every aspect of Kumeu River’s operations. Maté Brajkovich, who developed the estate with Kate after his father Mick died in 1949, passed his vision on to his children. Michael, Marijana, Milan and Paul are all deeply involved in the winery’s success today under the guidance of matriarch Melba Brajkovich.

The family philosophy – creating wines they love to drink, blending Old World elegance with New World innovation – has garnered them a loyal following both in New Zealand and internationally.

Chardonnay dominates Kumeu River’s plantings, accounting for 80% of its vineyards. The decision to specialise in Chardonnay arose naturally from the Kumeu terroir. The vineyard soils, predominantly clay over sandstone, are non-irrigated, compelling vines to develop deep roots.

Chardonnay vertical tasting

This year marks 80 years of the Brajkovich family in Kumeu, so Paul Brajkovich hosted a celebratory vertical tasting of Kumeu River Chardonnays in London, with bottles going back to 2002. All were made by his brother Michael Brajkovich MW, New Zealand’s first Master of Wine.

‘Michael went off to Roseworthy College in 1979 to study oenology and then he came back in 1981 to take up the winemaking journey. So of the 80 years, Michael’s been there for over 40 of them,’ explained Paul.

‘We are clearly best known for our Chardonnays – and that’s what we’re showcasing today,’ he continued. ‘The first Kumeu River Chardonnay we made was in 1985; the first one we exported was 1987.’

The tasting covered four cuvees: single-vineyard wines Coddington, Hunting Hill and Maté’s Vineyard, plus the Estate Chardonnay which is blended from six different sites in the Kumeu region. Tasted in four flights, the vintages included were: 2020 and 2019, 2014 and 2013, 2010 and 2007 and finally 2004 and 2002. The final flight included the same wine bottled under screwcap and cork for a comparison of the two closures.

Chardonnays tasted

1st Flight

2020 Estate Chardonnay

2020 Coddington

2020 Hunting Hill

2020 Maté’s Vineyard

2019 Estate Chardonnay

2019 Coddington

2019 Hunting Hill

2019 Mate’s Vineyard

2nd Flight

2014 Estate Chardonnay

2014 Coddington

2014 Hunting Hill

2014 Mate’s Vineyard

2013 Estate Chardonnay

2013 Coddington

2013 Hunting Hill

2013 Mate’s Vineyard

3rd Flight

2010 Estate Chardonnay

2010 Coddington

2010 Hunting Hill

2010 Mate’s Vineyard

2007 Estate Chardonnay

2007 Coddington

2007 Hunting Hill

2007 Mate’s Vineyard

4th Flight

2004 Estate Chardonnay

2004 Mate’s Vineyard

2002 Estate Chardonnay

2002 Estate Chardonnay (cork)

2002 Mate’s Vineyard

2002 Mate’s Vineyard (cork)

Winemaking and terroir

‘Our Estate Chardonnay is a blend of six different vineyard sites in Kumeu – all on Kumeu clays. All the vineyards are dry-farmed. The Estate is hand-harvested, whole-bunch pressed, it’s all barrel-fermented – usually around 3% new barrels – goes through primary fermentation, all wild yeast. We’ll go for 100% lactic fermentation in barrel, and then it stays on its yeast lees for 11 months before bottling,’ noted Paul.

‘The vinification on the other three is exactly the same,’ he added. Of the three single-vineyard wines Coddington isn’t actually owned by the estate. Nameda after previous owners Tim and Angela Coddington, today it’s leased from the new owner.

‘It was always a vineyard that was good enough to go into the Estate Chardonnay. But we actually gave it single-vineyard status in 2006, when we started to recognise it had quite a special quality about it,’ explained Paul.

‘It was producing the ripest Chardonnay that we were seeing each year, and this is something that we thought warranted to be left on its own.’

Special sites

‘Coddington is a lovely north-facing suntrap,’ continued Paul. ‘We get very ripe, very luscious Chardonnay from there and of three single vineyards it’s usually the easiest to taste when young, because of that ripeness and that lovely texture. There’s always a fine acidity on Coddington, which keeps it from becoming too rich’, he added.

Hunting Hill vineyard is owned by the Brajkovichs. ‘It’s directly above Maté’s vineyard and was bought by my father in the 60s,’ noted Paul. Initially used as farmland for a number of years, the site was planted to Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc in 1980.

‘The Chardonnay from that original Hunting Hill site is what made up the lion’s share of the original Estate Chardonnay back in the 80s,’ explained Paul.

When the site had to be replanted in the 1990s due to viruses, the Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon were replaced by Chardonnay. ‘It’s a Chardonnay that’s very fragrant’ said Paul.

‘It’s more about the lemon-lime blossom perfume on the nose, as opposed to the peachiness that you’ll see with the Estate and Coddington. It also has this very tight, linear, focused style of Chardonnay, which we persistently see here year in, year out.’

Maté’s Vineyard

Kumeu River’s icon Chardonnay comes from Maté’s Vineyard, bought by Paul’s father in 1944 and named after him. ‘That vineyard went through many incarnations over the years,’ noted Paul.

‘It had Palomino on it, it had Pinotage. It had all sorts of other hybrid varieties and was eventually pulled out completely in the mid- to late-70s.’

Maté decided to replant it in 1990 following the success of Kumeu River Chardonnay in the 1980s. ‘We chose the best clone of Chardonnay at the time, the Mendoza clone, and we put it on very low-vigour rootstocks,’ said Paul. The first vintage was 1993.

‘Dad passed away in 1992, so he unfortunately never saw any grapes from it,’ he added.

‘Initially we thought it was going to be another source for the Estate Chardonnay. But when we vinified the wine, it was significantly different from everything else,’ explained Paul.

‘As the vineyard’s gotten older, it’s just become better and better. Now that it’s over 30 years old, it’s really producing the most densely concentrated and quite rich Chardonnay that we make.’

‘Two of our best vintages’

The tasting began with 2020 and 2019 – ’which are probably two of our best vintages,’ noted Paul. ‘I remember Michael mentioning that 2019 was the best vintage he thought he’d seen in the years he was there. And then 2020 came along and it was even better, he added.

‘Everything in 19 and 20 just seemed to go seamlessly well. Perfect budburst, perfect flowering, lovely summers… and the grapes were picked beautifully ripe. It became quite clear with both vintages when they went through the fermentations and barrel that they were quite special.’

Showing beautifully in this tasting, wines from both vintages are currently available in UK and US retail (see tasting notes below). Snap them up if you see them…

Through the years

The following flight of 2014 and 2013 wines particularly highlighted the differences between Coddington and Hunting Hill after roughly a decade of age. ‘I think Coddington just has the approachability,’ noted Paul.

‘I’ve tasted the 2013 Coddington quite a bit recently and it has been a real standout.’ Of the two, it’s worth giving Hunting Hill more time in your cellar before opening.

‘When the 14s first went into the bottle were very generous and quite approachable – and they have been quite delicious to drink,’ noted Paul. ‘Then 2013 was another excellent vintage for us, but very low yields, due to a spring frost.’

Only around 300 cases of Coddington were produced; around 400 or 500 Hunting Hill and Maté’s Vineyard.

‘But the summer itself was one of the best we’d seen for a while. Everything became very concentrated, very intense, including the acidity. So we had some lovely, ripe characters and really, really fresh acids and quite concentrated wines.’

Moving onto the third flight, Paul explained that 2010 was another frost-affected vintage. ‘We didn’t use any new oak at all, because it was a very small vintage, so we used a high proportion of one-year-old and two-year-old barrels,’ he said.

‘2007 was a cool vintage, particularly in the early stages during budburst and flowering. And then we had a reasonable summer – not particularly warm, but it was dry. The 07s were always that little bit more in the citrus spectrum, rather than the peachy spectrum,’ he added.

Cork versus screwcap

The final flight of the tasting focused on the 2004 vintage of Estate Chardonnay and Maté’s Vineyard; alongside the same wines from the 2002 vintage, but one under screwcap and one under cork. Interestingly the decision to move to screwcap was motivated more by a desire for consistency than by incidence of cork taint.

‘We isolated 200 cases of 1999 Maté’s Vineyard in which we were getting a lot of corked bottles. So we thought: “OK, let’s open every bottle and re-cork the good ones… And we threw away 30% of the wine just due to cork taint.

‘But what was actually more alarming was going through the tasting of 120 bottles and you’d go, “Wow, that one’s really good!” So you think, actually, they should all taste like this. So it was the variation which was probably more scary than cork taint… and when we went to screwcap it eliminated all that inconsistency,’ explained Paul.

‘Now we’re very confident and very happy with the way the wines age and develop,’ he added.

For me this tasting highlighted not only the ageability of the Kumeu River Chardonnays, but also the incredible quality and value of the Estate bottling.

Drawing comparisons with Burgundy, Maté’s Vineyard and Hunting Hill are often described as grands crus, Coddington as a premier cru and the Estate as a village wine.

But this producer’s village wine is punching well above its weight.

Kumeu River Chardonnay Vertical: the wines

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