Blank Canvas Reed Vineyard Chardonnay 2020

Reviews

Cameron Douglas MS: 95/100. 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 wood smoke. 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.

Decanter: 95/100

VINOUS - Rebecca Gibb MW: 94/100. ... a wine of excellent purity, offering up nectarine and lemon fruit flavours: full solids have imbued a distinctive flinty note, while the savoury, nutty Character derived from the wood adds layers and will integrate further with another year in bottle.Drinking window: 2023-2030.

Bob Campbell, MW: 93/100. 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.

Julia Harding, MW for JancisRobinson.com: 18/20. Seductive and well-judged 'reductive' (smoky, struck-match) aroma and really toasty as it opens up, something cedary. Very Coche Dury but, most importantly, there is the fruit intensity to carry off this winemaking style. Nutty, creamy, mealy citrus. So many things going on that it makes you slow down to try to enjoy all this complexity. Deep, deliciously fresh and incredibly persistent with an aftertaste of savoury/mineral citrus… Classy and got better and better over the few days post opening.

James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com): 93/100 & Top 100 Wine from New Zealand 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. Drink or hold. Screw cap

Michael Cooper: 5 stars & Treat yourself. 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+.

Tasting Note

The Reed Vineyard Chardonnay is an incredibly textured, savoury wine. It summons a tightly-coiled white peach, grapefruit and toasted hazelnut aroma profile, which is complemented by complex flint and silex nuances. Its vividly sketched acidity allows it to carry the powerful but savoury oak in a defined yet impressive manner. 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.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: White wine

Grape varial: Chardonnay

Alcohol: 13.5% vol

Vineyard: Reed Vineyard, Waihopai Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand. Low-vigour clay soils and a naturally dry micro-climate. The Reeds have established themselves as formidable Chardonnay growers, converting their land at the mouth of the Waihopai Valley into vineyard in 2000.

Winemaking: Gently whole-bunch pressed with the very cloudy free-run juice going to new and seasonal French oak puncheons (500l). The wine was left without sulphur or lees stirring throughout maturation, and underwent natural malolactic fermentation in the Spring.

Residual sugar: 0 g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulfites

Cellaring potential: until 2024+

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled by: Kiwi-Oeno Limited, t/a Blank Canvas Wines, 2A Opawa Street, Blenheim 7201, Marlborough,New Zealand

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