Westbrook Waimauku Chardonnay

A lot of water (and maybe a bit of wine) has flowed under the bridge for the Ivicevich family since the days of ancestor Ante making wine from in the basement of a stone building in Yugoslavia.

A new family is at the helm these days and you’ll find them hard at work in the stunning surroundings of the West Brook winery in Waimauku, a 30 minute drive north from downtown Auckland. They produce wines using grapes from down the line in Marlborough but also from their own estate vineyards on site, including this absolutely top notch Waimauku Chardonnay.

These guys are bloody awesome when it comes to Chardonnay especially and this 2016 release is bang on yet again. A Gold medal winner at the NZ International Wine Show, a Gold medal winner at the Royal Easter Wine Show, 94/100 from Bob Campbell MW and listed in Cuisine’s Top 10 NZ Chardonnays. The Cuisine judges said “Flavours of white peach, flint and toasty oak are balanced with excellent richness and weight.”

We highly recommend paying the winery a visit one sunny weekend. Grab yourself a glass of something something from the Westbrook cellar door crew (heck, match it with one of their yummy platters) and set up camp on their awesome terraced picnic area over looking the duck pond. They’ve got balls too! Boules actually, so you can thrash it out on their full size petanque court! Game on.