I was over at the Cellar Door in Kumeu last weekend pre-lockdown, and bumped into Paul Brajkovich passing through (well, truth be told… he sold me a large bottle of wine). I asked him how the release of the 2020 wines had gone, particularly now that their flagship wine Mate’s Vineyard Chardonnay has garnered a 100/100 score from one of the biggest critics in the world – www.winefolio.co.nz/?p=4077.
“Yes it’s gone very well” he smiles.
“A lot of our customers in the UK, for example, have been introduced to us through Farr Vintners as an alternative to white Burgundy. The release of the 2020’s followed on from strong demand for the exceptional 2019’s. This was probably the first time where our initial allocation to all our markets were snapped up. Usually there was someone that would end up taking less and we could redistribute wine to customers that wanted it more.
With the 2020’s this continued and meant the allocations had to be even more precise than in the past. Part of this allocation process is to keep wine for our cellar door. We thought we had enough to last a few months but with the inherent demand, good reviews and then a 100 point review from Nick Stock forJamesSuckling.com it pushed things over the edge and the wine has disappeared very quickly!”
