The last bottle of a case bought on release which I’ve held onto just to see how it evolved.  I suspect that the Kumeu River Estate has been wine of the month before but on the basis of this delicious bottle it fully deserves to be again.

On the nose, baked lemon, tart citron (lemon, custard and pastry) vanilla, toast, smoke, both ripe and preserved fruit.

Dry, with a firm persistent freshness the wine is full bodied with a creamy texture but wears its 13.5% alcohol well. The new oak is now nicely integrated and the fruit remains pronounced with ripe citrus and pineapple. Lees aging and malolactic fermentation are evidenced by the yummy custard and pastry notes that combine with the lemon to come across as a baked lemon tart. All this now overlayed with honey and preserved lemon. The finish is complex and super long.

Still going strong at 12 years this is at a lovely point now but will hold for several years more. These wines drink well on release and so it’s hard to resist polishing them off in their youth, but a decade or so of bottle age has really brought all the elements together beautifully.