Kumeu River Wines Village Chardonnay 2025

Description

Incorporating approximately 20% Hawke’s Bay fruit from a recently acquired vineyard, the 2017 Village Chardonnay is one of the strongest I can recall, despite a challenging vintage. Mainly fermented and aged in older barrels, it’s medium-bodied and plump in the mouth, with notes of peach and pineapple. Creamy, soft and custardy in texture, it picks up a crisp, citrusy edge on the finish. Wine Advocate 89 (2017)

At Kumeu River Wines our winemaking philosophy is simple. We endeavour to grow grapes of the highest standard and then treat them with respect when we turn them into wine. In this way the potential quality is maximised, and we are able to produce wines that are truly representative of our land. To this end our vineyards are trained on the “Lyre” trellis to optimise their exposure to light and therefore the ripeness of the grapes. Yields are kept low to improve the concentration of aromas and flavours in the grapes, and we harvest all of our grapes by hand. This allows us to remove faulty berries in the field so that our quality grapes may arrive at the winery in pristine condition. The white grapes are all whole-bunch pressed, which is time-consuming but gives us the best quality results. The reds are destemmed and crushed gently before being transferred to fermentation tanks. No yeasts are added, as we rely solely on the indigenous yeasts that are present in the vineyard to conduct our fermentations.