The 2024 Estate Chardonnay is floral and tightly coiled, with a scratched lime backbone. It's not as complex as the Ray's Road tasted alongside, yet it's utterly composed and restrained. It is mineral and very good indeed. This was tasted as a tank sample prior to filtration and bottling.

2024 Growing Season at Kumeu from the Kumeu's perspective
After the difficulties of the 2023 season and the saturated soils from high rainfall, the 2024 season started well with nice, even budburst throughout the vineyards. Things were looking very good, until a short spell of wet and cold weather just on flowering meant that some decrease in yield was certainly to be expected.

The rest of the growing season was excellent, with mostly dry and warm conditions. While other parts of the country experienced quite high temperatures, ours were just moderately warm, and never exceeded 29°C.

This resulted in very steady berry maturation, with beautiful aroma and flavour development right up until harvest.

We did an early pick for the Crémant wines in Kumeu from February 8th to 20th, then started the Kumeu Chardonnay harvest on Leap Day, February 29th.  Harvest concluded with the last of the Rays Road (Hawkes Bay) Chardonnay on the 16th of March.

The harvest period itself was relatively free of rainfall, with only two small rain events interrupting the flow of vintage.  The picking crews had very little damage to sort through and the grapes arriving at the cellar were beautifully pristine. Hand harvesting is a very expensive process, but well worth the cost and effort for the quality it brings.

Our earlier fears about yield were justified. In Kumeu, we were down by more than 30%, and in Hawke’s Bay, it was nearer 50% down on average. Quantities of all our wines will be low this year, but on the positive side, the quality across the board is outstanding.

Chardonnay wines, particularly the Single Vineyards, are shining examples of the Kumeu style. The terroir differences between various parcels are very distinct, really highlighting their individual personalities. Pinot Gris is also very strong this year with high sugar levels and with some Botrytis influence, producing rich and textural wines.