Blank Canvas
Anandale Farm Riesling 2025 750ml

New Release

ACCOLADES

‘A curiously complex nose with smoke, subtle flint, pepper and savoury earthiness. The palate leans into the savoury notes along with a touch of toasty, biscuity funk, revealing a generous sweetness mid-palate before the limy acidity streaks through to counteract the sugar, leaving the finish surprisingly off-dry and mouth-wateringly tart despite being technically sweeter than that. Powdery and pithy phenolics add to the length. A more daring modern Germanic approach which is well-judged and interesting.’

94 POINTS | STEPHEN WONG | JANUARY 2025

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‘Classic, off-dry, fragrant and delicious on the palate. Aromas and flavours of white peach and lemon, a mix of red and green apple, white rose and wet stone minerality. The acid line carries the purity of fruit flavours and contrasts the off-dry sweetness level, there’s a fine saline quality, excellent phenolics and mouthfeel leading to a lengthy finish with complexity and finesse. Best drinking from day of purchase through 2030+.’

94 POINTS | CAMERON DOUGLAS | JANUARY 2025

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‘Medium-dry riesling with lime/citrus, oyster shell, a suggestion of honey and white rose petal flavours. A perfect balance of restrained sweetness with bright acidity gives the wine an exquisite tension.’

93 POINTS | BOB CAMPBELL MW | JANUARY 2025

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‘The 2024 Anandale Farm Riesling is from vines planted in the early 2000s and was one of the first vineyards planted in the Blind River area. The land is located south of the Awatere, separated from the valley by a fault-line ridge. It is the coldest, windiest and driest part of Marlborough, with annual rainfall down around 400 millimeters per annum. This 2024 Anandale Farm Riesling is high in natural acidity, at nine grams of total acidity, 30 grams of residual sugar and 9% alcohol. Aromatically, the wine leads with lemongrass and reed. On the palate, the acidity and the sugar are in harmonious concert, while there is a clothy, waxy texture through the finish. The fruit is handpicked, free-run only, and pressings are not employed. There were 550–600 liters per tonne in the press cut. The wine has crystal clarity and finesse, and despite the sweet softness of the residual sugar, the wine has austerity and rockiness à la the vineyard. This is very good! Sealed under screw cap.’

93 POINTS | ERIN LARKIN | WINE ADVOCATE | JUNE 2025

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‘The 2024 Riesling Anandale Farm welcomes you like an old friend with a burst of immediate sweetness before it provides its firm line of acidity, skewering the wine's core. There's a push-and-pull reminiscent of the tension that you get when you stretch a piece of elastic in both directions. Attractive flavors of apple, violet and orange citrus combine, but they don't persist for as long as I'd like.’

91 POINTS | REBECCA GIBB MW | VINOUS.COM | MARCH 2025

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‘A fresh and fruity riesling with an off-dry palate of lemons and green melon with bright acidity and a clean and vivid finish. Straightforward. Drink now. Screw cap.’

90 POINTS | JAMES SUCKLING | NOVEMBER 2024

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‘Full screwcapped bottle 1,210 g. A low-yielding vintage but with perfect harvest conditions. From the Blind River subregion. Silty loam and gravel soils close to the coast. Planted 2001. Hand-harvested, whole-bunch pressed, free-run juice fermented in tank, with the fermentation stopped by chilling. TA 10 g/l, RS 30 g/l, pH 2.92. Certified Appellation Marlborough.Very pale. Utterly pure Riesling aroma: lime citrus, white blossom and a slight smokiness. Deliciously balanced between sweetness and acidity but avoiding a sweet-sour impression. There's a very very slight phenolic grip in the texture which is an excellent counterpoint to the off-dry sweetness. Pure, unadulterated, crisp and long, showing off the fruit from the coast-influenced white, which is mouth-watering and just a touch salty on the finish. Nothing like German Riesling, and rightly so. Has the purity, cool climate and sunshine of Marlborough. Delicious now but with, I suspect, good ageing potential. Not concentrated but persistent. A lightness of touch that would make it a perfect aperitif.’

17 POINTS |  JULIA HARDING MW | JANCIS.ROBINSON.COM | JUNE 2025

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‘The pale lemon/green 2024 vintage is a single-vineyard wine, hand-harvested at Blind River, south of the Awatere Valley.  Light-bodied (9 per cent alcohol by volume), it is a vigorous, medium style of Riesling, with penetrating, delicate, citrusy fruit flavours, finely balanced sweetness and acidity, and a lengthy, tightly structured finish.  Still very youthful, it's well worth cellaring to 2027+.’

4.5 STARS | MICHAEL COOPER MA ONZM | FEBRUARY 2025