Blank Canvas Reed Marlborough Chardonnay 2019

Blank Canvas Reed Marlborough Chardonnay 2019French oak Stone & orchard fruit Honeyed notes Powerful & complex "Impressive purity and power with peach, nectarine fruit flavours together with a subtle struck flint mineral, reductive character and a pleasing savoury note. A taut, elegant Chardonnay thats good now but promises to get even better with bottle age" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Jun 2020 "Slightly more extroverted at this stage than its Escaroth stablemate, the classy 2019

• French oak
• Stone & orchard fruit
• Honeyed notes
• Powerful & complex

"Impressive purity and power with peach, nectarine fruit flavours together with a subtle struck-flint mineral, reductive character and a pleasing savoury note. A taut, elegant Chardonnay that’s good now but promises to get even better with bottle age" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Jun 2020

"Slightly more extroverted at this stage than its Escaroth stablemate, the classy 2019 vintage (5*) is a single-vineyard, Waihopai Valley wine, hand-picked and fermented with indigenous yeasts in French oak puncheons (40 per cent new). Bright, light lemon/green, it is mouthfilling and savoury, with concentrated, citrusy, peachy flavours, finely integrated oak and impressive complexity. A powerful, distinctive wine with obvious potential, it’s best cellared to 2022+" Michael Cooper, Aug 2020

"Sophisticated and complex bouquet of Chardonnay with aromas of gun-flint and oak spices, moments of lemon and grapefruit then yellow fleshed orchard fruit. The second and third sniffs reveal a mineral, stone and textured complexity. The bouquet overall is very youthful and vibrant with the messages of oak strong. On the palate - equally expressive, youthful and complex. Flavours reflect the nose with citrus then oak. Fine wood tannins with a smoky edge, medium+ acidity and palate trill. While this wine is very young it has fantastic potential that Chardonnay fans should invest in and and cellar some bottles. Best drinking from early 2022 through 2026+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, May 2020

The Reed Chardonnay is an incredibly textured, savoury wine. It parades a bounty of fleshy white nectarine and orchard fruit, flint-focused precision and a grainy, honeyed richness. Its vividly sketched acidity allows it to carry the powerful but savoury oak in a define yet impresive manner. The full solids fermentation with 100% wild yeast and 14 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 development in many years to come.

2019 was one of the driest vintages on record and for many in the region one of the lowest cropping. A relatively wet Spring provided good early season growth, though a cool flowering period resulting in low berry numbes for Chardonnay. The dry conditions with only trivial rainfall between Christmas and the 10 March meant there was zero disease pressure and produced exceptionally clean, healthy fruit. Overall the Chardonnay of 2019 produced very generous, ripe fruit flavours and beautiful intensity and richness on the palate.

The Reed vineyard is home to dedicated growers and friends Pete and Anna Reed. Situated at the mouth of the Waihopai Valley, they first planted vines on their land in 2001. The 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 is loved for its elegance and aromatic complexity. Winemakers hand-harvested this fruit on the 19th March 2019.

Simply and sincerely made, this Chardonnay was gently whole-bunch pressed with very cloudy free-run juice only going to new and seasoned French oak puncheons (500L). There it was left to kick off wild fermentation. The wine was left to its own devices, without sulphur or lees stirring throughout maturation, and it underwent natural malolactic fermentation in the Spring. Winemakers carefully racked it ad bottled it without filtration on the 2nd April 2020.