Kumeu River Mate's Vineyard Chardonnay 2024

James Suckling, 98/100 punten
"The complexity and subtlety are most impressive, with honeysuckle, white flower, ripe pear, flint and vanilla bean aromas. Medium-bodied with a tight and phenolic texture and a long, tight finish. Lots of layered mouthfeel and complexity. Fantastic finish. Drink or hold."

Huon Hooke, 97/100 punten
"Almond-meal aromas with smoky/flinty background and dried flowers/pot-pourri creeping in as it airs. The wine is tremendously refined and graceful with subtle intensity that builds along the palate, with the kind of focused and precise flavour that you see in top burgundies. Very impressive persistence. A lovely wine indeed."

Wine Front, 96+/100 punten
"I will say, and maybe it’s just this vintage, that Kumeu seem to be moving toward a more pure expression of vineyard over sulphide and winemaking artifice. This vineyard was planted in 1990. Preserved lemon, green olive, hazelnut, a few matchsticks, ginger, tarragon, green pear and white peach. In short, complex. It’s savoury, mealy, saline, has a certain spicy and almost white pepper character, though there’s no shortage of intensity and fruit. Lots of flint and chalk. Very long. Kind of reticent and tightly-coiled as at now, though gee, it’s a wine of presence and regal carriage. Outstanding."

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 95-97 punten
"The 2024 Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay is mouthfilling and full, easily the biggest and most powerful of the single-vineyard Chardonnays in this 2024 release. "In terms of quality, 2024 is up there with the best of them: 2022, 2020, 2014..." This feels perhaps as statuesque and thrilling as the best of the Maté's so far, with intensity that explodes in every direction on the palate—length and width—with spicy top notes and a thunderous base of yellow fruit. The acidity, as usual, coils and weaves its way across the palate, lacing together the fruit and phenolics with seamless intensity. This is very good."

Jancis Robinson NW, 17/20 punten
"From the Brajkovichs' Maté’s vineyard of 2.49 ha planted in 1990 but Maté died in 1992. Hand-harvested, whole-bunch pressed before 100% spontaneous fermentation in French oak barrels with 100% malo (30% new French oak: Mercurey and Séguin Moreau). 11 months' ageing in barrel. Virused. Their only Mendoza clone (though they are planting some virus-free Mendoza – which is still hen and chicken! – in Hawke's Bay). Deepest straw colour. A bit more restrained on the nose and then big and rich on the palate. Lots of chew on the palate, too! Still youthful and without the refinement of Hunting Hill. Big and bold on the finish. Exuberant and quite chewy after that great whack of fruit."