Wine Enthusiast’s 2026 Buying Guide is out, with Christine Pickard reviewing our 2024 collection of Chardonnays.

During her recent visit to New Zealand, Erin Larkin of The Wine Advocate joined us for a retrospective tasting that she described as “monumental”. 32 vintages of Kumeu River Chardonnay, including wines dating back over two decades. Among these was the newly released 2024 Single Vineyard Chardonnays, which Erin praised as being “up there with the best of them: 2022, 2020, 2014…” Her full tasting notes and scores for the 2024 vintage are below:   2024 Kumeu River Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay: 95 - 97 pts Drink Date: 2025 - 2039 The 2024 Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay is mouth-filling and full, easily...

We were delighted to host Erin Larkin of The Wine Advocate on her recent trip to New Zealand.Erin missed out on joining us for our Kumeu Restrospective tastings, so we went into the family cellar once more, tasting through 32 vintages (some up to 21 years old) in what Erin described as a “monumental” tasting. Read her full article below:New Zealand: South Island Trip During Vintage 2025 New Zealand is best known globally for its Sauvignon Blancs from Marlborough, a cool, coastal, mountainous region on the northern tip of the South Island. In fact, the wines made in Marlborough account for almost 70% of the entire...

To cap off the celebrations of our 80th Anniversary here in Kumeu we hosted a retrospective Kumeu River Chardonnay tasting at the winery.  We welcomed writers, restaurateurs, and close friends from the trade in New Zealand and Australia to share some of our favourite and most celebrated vintages.The Retrospective Tasting provided an exceptional opportunity to demonstrate our wines' quality and remarkable aging potential and reinforced our pioneering decision to convert to screwcap in 2001.Throughout the tasting, we celebrated a few great vintages and milestones, including Nigel Tibbets' 50th year at Kumeu River, and to top it off, the tasting was hosted on what...