Blank Canvas Reed Marlborough Chardonnay 2020

Blank Canvas Reed Marlborough Chardonnay 2020French oak Baked stonefruit Lime curd & spice Rich & mouthfilling "What an excellent example with immediately captivating aromas of stone fruits and sweet citrus, a leesy savoury spice and stony flinty complexity. The oak adds layers of spice and some woodsmoke. The bouquet is complex, layered and enticing. On the palate plenty of weight and richness, but not so much as to detract from the essence of what Chardonnay is all about in this case power,

• French oak
• Baked stonefruit
• Lime curd & spice
• Rich & mouthfilling

"What an excellent example with immediately captivating aromas of stone fruits and sweet citrus, a leesy savoury spice and stony flinty complexity. The oak adds layers of spice and some woodsmoke. The bouquet is complex, layered and enticing. On the palate - plenty of weight and richness, but not so much as to detract from the essence of what Chardonnay is all about - in this case - power, finesse, layers of texture and a core of fruit reflecting fresh and baked stone fruits, grapefruit, baked apple and baking spices of French oak. Excellent texture and length, well made and ready to drink from 2022 through 2028" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Jul 2021

"Intense, edgy chardonnay, which combines moderately opulent tree fruit, peach and nectarine flavours with taut citrus characters and a pronounced oyster-shell influence. Youthful and slightly raw at this stage but with the potential to mellow with bottle age" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Jun 2021

"This notably classy, single-vineyard wine was hand-harvested in the Waihopai Valley, fermented and matured in French oak puncheons (partly new), and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Richly fragrant, it is mouthfilling, complex and generous, with deep peach and grapefruit flavours, finely integrated oak, and a tightly structured, long, seamless finish. Best drinking 2023+" Michael Cooper's Buyers Guide, Jul 2021

"It's not cheap, but this exceptional wine offers top value. Richly fragrant, it is mouthfilling, complex and generous, with deep peach and grapefruit flavours, finely intergrated oak and a long, tight, seamless finish. Classy stuff" Michael Cooper, Listener Magazine, Aug 2021

"Aromas of dried mango, lime curd, coriander, honeysuckle and salted butter with some meaty and smoky undertones. Full-bodied with tangy acidity. Concentrated and rich, yet well structured, with a bright backbone of acidity and phenolic texture" James Suckling, Jamessuckling.com, Aug 2021

The Reed Vineyard Chardonnay is an incrediby textured, savoury wine. It parades a bounty of fleshy white nectarine and orchard fruit, flint-focused precision and grainy, honeyed richness. Its vividly sketched acidity allows it to carry the powerful but savoury oak in a defines yet impressive manner. The full solids fermentation with 100% wild yeasts and 12 months lees ageing without battonage has given multitudinous layers of complexity. This is a wine for drinking now for its crystalline purity or cellaring and reaping the benefits of tertiary deveopment in many years to come.

2020 - the vintage to go down in the history books as one of the easiest and exciting from a fruit perspective, but one of the most challenging and stressful becuase of the Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown. A warm Spring and above average rainfall set the growing season up well with an excellent flowering. Drought conditions through Summer but moderate temperatures meant vines did not become too stressed and fruit was in excellent, clean condition. Overall 2020 provided Chardonnay with great purity of flavour, balanced and precision.

The Reed Vineyard is home to deidcated growers and friends Pete and Anne Reed. Situated at the mouth of the Waihopi Valley, they first planted vines on their land in 2001. This parcel of Chardonnay is top-grafted onto ancient Gewürztraminer vines so while the top-graft is young, the vine roots go deep. The parcel is 100% Clone 95 Chardonnay, which we love for its elegance and aromatic complexity. We hand-harvested this fruit on the 30th March 2020, during lockdown.

Simply and sincerely made, this Chardonnay was gently whole-bunch pressed with the bery cloudy free-run juice going to new and seasoned French oak puncheons (500L). There we left it to kick off wild fermentatio. The wine was left to its own devices, without suplhur dioxide or lees stirring throughout maturation, and it underwent natural malolactic fermentation in the Spring. We carefully racked it and bottled it without fining or filtration on the 17th March 2021.