"95-97/100 Erin Larkin, RobertParker.com
The 2024 Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay is mouth filling 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.
The 2024 vintage continues the exceptional level of quality from this 35-year-old vineyard. The resulting wine shows the density, concertation and length that we expect from a terrific vintage and this year we see an extra crisp lemon acidity. Although still somewhat shy on the nose, with bottle age the full palette of complex aromas and bouquet of this wonderful wine will be gradually and seductively revealed."
In 1990, Maté Brajkovich reworked the land and planted a new vineyard of Chardonnay vines on the site of the original vineyard that he and his family purchased in March 1944. The first grapes from this vineyard were harvested in March 1993, the year following Maté’s death. The resulting wine was released in November 1994 to coincide with celebrations marking the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Brajkovich Family’s arrival at Kumeu River.
