2024 Kumeu River Rays Road Pinot Noir, Hawke's Bay

Kumeu River is regarded as one of New Zealand’s premier wine producers, having set the benchmark for Burgundian-inspired wines for decades.

Rays Road is their first vineyard outside of the western Auckland and a geographical and stylistic outlier compared to the rest of the portfolio. Acquired in the late-2017, the dry-farmed site located at Raukawa in Hawke’s Bay was originally a joint venture between Trinity Hill and Pascal Jolivet of Pouilly-Fumé fame. It is a north-facing limestone hillside at an elevation of 180–200 metres, a position that makes it markedly cooler than the majority of that region.

This vineyard is the of Kumeu River’s Village Pinot Noir, with a small section reserved for the Rays Road bottling. The recent plantings of clones 828 and 943 are contributing increasing quantities of lifted red-fruit aromas and more textural weight to this bright and fragrant wine. The fruit is hand-harvested, de-stemmed and crushed, then fermented with indigenous yeasts. The must was puched down several times a day during the fermentation for enhanced colour, flavour and structure, and the wine rested in French oak barrels for eleven months before final assessments and bottling.

Approachable now, this supple red will gain complexity as it matures over the next couple of years. It would thrive alongside dishes that embrace herbal and aromatic complexity: try roasted paprika dusted quail with a fennel, orange and black olive salad or Dongpo pork with pickled mustard greens in steamed bao buns.