Melba Brajkovich with her children Milan, Marijana, Michael and Paul, the third generation to run Kumeu River winery. Photo / Michael Craig
Eighty years ago Mick and Kate Brajkovich joined other Dalmatian immigrants in west Auckland’s Kumeū, planting grapes and making wine. Jane Phare visits the Kumeu River vineyard to talk to the third generation of the Brajkovich family about their world-class chardonnay.
It was known as “Dally plonk” decades ago, back when Aucklanders drove out west at weekends to buy veges and eggs next to an honesty box, pick strawberries and buy bottles of wine from one of the many wineries.
This was Dally (Dalmatian) country, where the majority of the vineyards in Kumeū and Henderson – well over 60 – were owned and run by Croatian families who had emigrated from Europe, bringing with them the skills of growing grapes and making wine. They were names that would become familiar with Kiwi wine drinkers – Selaks, Nobilo, Soljans, Delegat, Fistonich (Villa Maria), Yukich (Montana Wines) and Brajkovich.
Dalmatian immigrants Mick and Kate Brajkovich arrived in New Zealand in 1937 with their 12-year-old son Mate and, seven years later, bought farmland 25km northwest of Auckland city on which to plant grapevines. Growing grapes and making wine were things they knew about from the old country.
Mate married Croatian immigrant Melba Sutich in 1958, and together they ran the vineyard, then called San Marino. Their four children, Michael, Marijana, Milan and Paul helped in the winery at the weekends, picking grapes, labelling on the bottling line, and selling wine to visiting Aucklanders.
Renamed Kumeu River in 1986, it’s now one of the last surviving wineries out west. When Mate Brajkovich died in 1992, aged 65, Melba took over running the vineyard with the help of her three sons, later joined by Marijana.
Now the Brajkovich siblings run a multimillion-dollar wine-producing business together. Michael is the winemaker, Milan is the viticulturist and engineer, Marijana, is in charge of finance and marketing, and Paul is in marketing and sales.
Melba, 87, is sitting in the sun in the Kumeu River courtyard when the Herald visits. Behind her, one of the gardeners is dead-heading a prolific rose bush in park-like grounds studded with towering trees by the Kumeū River. She still lives in the house built by her late husband Mate Brajkovich 65 years ago, a home designed by the late architect Stephen Jelicich, who co-founded JASMaD Group, now Jasmax.
Back then she was a 21-year-old bride who loved dancing at the Dally Club in town in the late 50s. She and her husband grew grapes on what was then a farm, and planted vast plots of strawberries, bringing in relatives from Croatia to help during picking season. An unsealed road ran past the vineyard, and cars were so rare workers looked up as one passed.
Now State Highway 16 rumbles past the house that Mate built, a four-lane annoyance that divides the vineyard in two. We zoom across in cars to inspect Mate’s Vineyard and Hunting Hill’s rows of chardonnay vines on the other side – safer than running across, Michael Brajkovich says.
As he and brother Milan stroll through the rows of vines they remark on the encouraging fruit set beneath the leaves. With a bit of luck, it looks like it will be an abundant season for the grapes. At the end of each row, yellow Serendipity rose bushes in full bloom provide splashes of gold as cars speed past.
The vineyards still produce a little pinot gris and pinot noir but it’s the Kumeu River chardonnays that are attracting international attention from wine buffs, critics and collectors. Of the 250,000 bottles produced annually, 80% are chardonnay. That includes 120,000 bottles of the entry-level Kumeu River Village Chardonnay and between 72,000 and 108,000 bottles of the Estate Chardonnay.
One international wine critic wrote: “... the quality gap between their Kumeu River Village Chardonnay and the Single Vineyards is much narrower than the difference in price suggests.”
Mate’s Vineyard sells for more than $100 a bottle with Hunting Hill and Coddington chardonnays close behind, pricy by New Zealand standards but not against other premium brands.
Paul Brajkovich: “You can either buy a bottle of Kumeu River Mate’s Vineyard at $100 a bottle or you can buy some premier cru or grand cru Burgundy at anywhere between $200 to $1000.”
The world, it seems, can’t get enough of the brand, or the chardonnay. Thirty years ago, between 5% and 10% of the Kumeu River range was exported; now 70% is sold to more than 20 countries, mainly the UK, Australia, the US, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Ten to 15 years ago, allocations of Kumeu River wines to overseas markets were a bit of a “juggling act” to make sure everything was sold, Brajkovich says. That’s changed in the past five to six years.
“Every overseas customer has said ‘yep, we’ll take it all. And if you have any more we’ll take that too. Export has been a very strong growth for us.”
Stephen Browett, a co-owner of UK wholesale merchants Farr Vintners which turns over $186 million a year selling some of the world’s finest wines, has a favourite trick, Brajkovich says. He serves Kumeu River chardonnay in blind tastings, fooling tasters into thinking they are drinking a premier chardonnay from one of the top Burgundy producers in France.
“Many of them are surprised to find it is in fact a lovely little wine from Kumeū in New Zealand.”
In charge of making sure that lovely little wine meets international standards is winemaker Michael Brajkovich who decided as a young teenager he would follow in his father’s footsteps. Consequently, he studied the sciences at school, and French so he could talk to top French winemakers. He attended Roseworthy Agriculture College in Adelaide, leaving as dux in 1981 and joined the family business the following year.
Brajkovich, who became New Zealand’s first Master of Wine in 1989, soon realised that the Kiwi knack of adapting quickly was the key to success. Acknowledged as an industry leader, he was an early adopter of the screw top, arguing that it protected the quality of the wine better than cork. One aspect he won’t change, though, is how the grapes are picked. The fruit is still harvested and sorted by hand in all the vineyards to ensure top quality.
Brajkovich was initially intent on producing a top Merlot from the vineyard but Auckland’s weather patterns soon changed his mind.
“We thought that variety (a Merlot) would be very good in this area and it is to a degree.”
But the success was one year out of three or four, whereas chardonnay planted around the same time produced more consistent quality, he says.
“So when it came to replanting vineyards it made sense to plant more chardonnay.”
Since then the vineyard’s premier chardonnays have built up a following from wine collectors and drinkers overseas, benefiting from an increased demand for fine wine.
“Around the world, there is more interest in luxury wines. People are probably drinking less but deciding to drink better,” Brajkovich says.
“White Burgundy, made from the chardonnay grape, has never been more popular and the prices keep going up. Our wines correspond with that style of wine.”
As the prices of white Burgundy keep increasing, those who enjoy that wine are looking for better value, he says.
The family has weathered recessions, extreme weather events that flooded the vineyards and the creeping inevitability of urban sprawl. The expanding northwestern motorway and land zoning changes meant vineyards, farms and hothouses gradually disappeared as the land became more valuable for housing.
The four Brajkovich siblings, watching vineyards sold to land bankers and developers, and new subdivisions creep closer, vowed they were not going anywhere. The family own 40ha in Kumeū, 30ha of which are planted in vines, and they lease another 10ha of vineyards in the Kumeū, Huapai and Waimauku areas.
The two main wineries, Mate’s Vineyard named after their father, and Hunting Hill, are mostly zoned rural general. However, their land and vineyards on Waitākere Rd is now rural residential, meaning it can be subdivided into 2ha blocks. One of the labels produced from a leased Waimauku vineyard, Coddington, may disappear if the land is sold.
As a result of the need to futureproof, the family expanded into Hawke’s Bay in 2017, buying 25ha of vineyard land from Trinity Hill. Now known as Rays Road, the vineyard is gradually being transplanted from sauvignon blanc to chardonnay varieties.
The conversation turns to succession and what the fourth generation will do. The four Brajkovich siblings have nine children between them, aged from 21 to 32, who have worked in the winery during school holidays when they were younger. Now they’re pursuing their own careers although Marijana’s son Scott, 29, is interested in coming back into the business.
Paul Brajkovich is confident that Kumeu River will survive the encroachment of civilisation because the land provides them with a lucrative return – top-quality wine that sells for premium prices.
“We’re producing terrifically good wine from the sites and getting decent value for them. And of course, as the vineyards get older they get better.”
Jane Phare is a senior Auckland-based business, features and investigations journalist, former assistant editor of NZ Herald and former editor of the Weekend Herald and Viva.
Look Sharp had frequent and widespread pricing errors over a substantial period.