The 2025 Kumeu River wines have just been released today, in what is an outstanding vintage for this consistently great producer. Farr Vintners customers know by now just how magnificent these wines are, competing on a global stage for their quality despite their modest price points. This vintage has strong critical reviews and, more importantly, we absolutely loved them when we tasted them at our offices with Paul Brajkovich earlier this year.
2025 was a dry, warm growing season chez Kumeu, without heat spikes (there were only two days over 28°C). This allowed for slow, even ripening and the retention of the delicate, layered aromatics and flavours that you will find only in the best Chardonnays from around the world. Yields were moderate due to the dry conditions, but concentration and quality are superb. There is also enough wine this year that we can exclusively offer a handful of double magnums of the single vineyard Auckland wines, as well as the 2019 base vintage Blanc de Blancs Crémant. This is Kumeu River’s top of the range sparkling wine and a serious rival to any Champagne at a similar price. Made from 100% Chardonnay, the base vintage was 2019 (about 80%) with the rest from older vintages. It was bottled in 2020 and left to mature on its lees for six years until it was disgorged in 2026.
Always a signal of vintage quality, the Estate Chardonnay is brilliant this year. Loaded with ripe fruit but equally vibrant in acidity, it offers delicious, forward drinking and is quintessentially Kumeu in style. It has 93 points from our own Thomas Parker MW and from the Wine Advocate's Erin Larkin, who writes "This is a very good wine, and the length through the finish is impressive." The strongest note of all is from Jancis Robinson who declares that the Estate Chardonnay in 2025 is “The most ambitious bottling yet. This would not look out of place in Puligny Montrachet” - an impressive comment on a wine that still sells at under £200 per dozen. Rays Road continues its upward trajectory, the Hawkes Bay site giving a unique, cool, refined style of Chardonnay that Larkin concurs is "impressive and quite different from the other cuvées" in her 94-point review.
The three single vineyard wines are unsurprisingly magnificent, and in this concentrated year translate their individual personalities beautifully. Each critic seems to have their own favourite vineyard here this year with huge 96 or 97 point ratings for each wine. In Burgundy scores like these are seen only on wines costing many hundreds of pounds per bottle.
Coddington has kicked on in recent vintages and so it shows again this year. Creamy, full-bodied and loaded with ripe orchard fruit, it is pure pleasure that you can enjoy already, but that backbone of acidity keeps everything fresh. 96 points from Larkin - "It's a beauty, and never more so than in this brilliant 2025 vintage!" and 97 from James Suckling. Hunting Hill is its typical, tightly-coiled self, unfurling with steely lime cordial and citrus blossom. It will flourish with 2-3 years in bottle. It scores 96 from Thomas Parker: "it will be an absolute knockout" and James Suckling: "beautiful interplay between the driving acidity and distinct minerality." Maté's Vineyard takes the best of Hunting Hill and Coddington in one - it is tightly packed, explosive and deep, with concentration in both fruit and acidity that should let it age gracefully for well over a decade. 97 from both Suckling and Larkin, who writes "This is an exceptional release of Maté's, one you should make every effort to taste". Of the 10,000+ New Zealand white wines ever tasted by The Wine Advocate only one wine has ever scored higher than this - the legendary and impossible to find Kumeu River Hunting Hill 2007. Critic scores like this show that this vintage is clearly one of the greatest ever at this Estate.
This is an exceptional, exciting vintage for Kumeu River, one with superb quality across the board. Moreover, with the possible exception of Hunting Hill, these are deliciously drinkable and can be enjoyed within the next 12 months. The wines are all available for delivery now.
