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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.

The Brajkovich family and Kumeu River Wines is a story that parallels the New Zealand wine industry.

From the pioneering days to the establishment of the New Zealand wine industry to today, the Brajkovich family have been internationally recognised as producing world class wine.

The Brajkovichs are focused on and internationally recognised as producing world class Chardonnay.

Kumeu River Wines encompasses 30 hectares of vineyards, which are predominantly clay soils overlying a sandstone base. These soil types retain sufficient water at depth, even during the summer months, to ensure the deep vine roots continue to hydrate the vine without excessive vigour. Therefore, the vineyard doesn’t require irrigation, a factor that is critical to the quality of Kumeu River’s grapes.

The vineyards are trained on a ‘Lyre’ trellis to help optimise exposure to light and increase grape maturity and quality. One of the distinguishing factors of Kumeu River’s wines is all of the grapes are harvested by hand. This allows the opportunity to remove sub-standard grapes by hand; the result is a net yield of purely high-quality grapes.