Blank Canvas
Reed Vineyard Chardonnay 2025 750ml

New Release

2024 Reed Vineyard Chardonnay Reviews

‘The refined 2024 vintage (*****) was hand-picked at the confluence of  the Waihopai and Wairau valleys.  Bright, light lemon/green, it is a mouthfilling, vigorous, savoury wine, with peachy, citrusy, gently biscuity flavours, showing excellent intensity, vibrancy and complexity.  Still youthful, with finely tuned acidity and a lingering finish, it's a very stylish wine, well worth cellaring for several years.’

5 STARS | MICHAEL COOPER MZ ONZM | SEPTEMBER 2025

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‘Sourced from growers Pete and Anne Reed on a vineyard that sits in central Wairau, on an elevated terrace near the confluence of the Waihopai and Wairau Rivers. The site allows for slow, even ripening and the development of fine acidity and structure – qualities that were exacerbated by the exceptional 2024 vintage, which naturally gave low yields and vibrant acidities due to low night-time temperatures. Hand picking, whole-bunch pressing, wild ferments in French oak puncheons (40% new) and oak ageing for 11 months has given an exceptionally well defined and compelling style packed full of flinty, citric, nutty, toasty, smoky flavours and a vibrant, tense finish. ‘Is this the best one we’ve made so far..?’ muses Thomson while we taste. Irrespective: it’s fabulous. And still very young – this is a wine that will age well too, given its natural vibrancy and tension.’

97 POINTS | NZ WINES OF THE YEAR LIST & BEST WINEMAKER | SUSIE & PETER NEW ZEALAND WINES OF THE YEAR | JANUARY 2026

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‘Powerful aromas of reduction to start with gunflint, smoke and struck match to the fore. Savoury oak adds another layer of complexity. On the palate the fruit is ripe and dense and easily offsets the reduction. But it is a fine balance, at this stage weighted towards the reduction. However, the long savoury, almost meaty finish indicates that for the patient, this will develop into a very fine wine.’

96 POINTS (5 STARS) | JANE SKILTON MW | INSIDE BURGUNDY | AUGUST 2025 

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Top 100 Wines of New Zealand 2025 (#26)   ‘So perfumed and full of character, with wild, energetic power, offering aromas of beeswax, dried rosemary, crunchy stone fruit and savory orange peel. Medium- to full-bodied with tense, lively acidity and a tight phenolic structure, showing expressive fruit, smoke, minerals and crushed stones at the end. A beautiful wine. Drink now or hold. Screw cap.’

96 POINTS | JAMES SUCKLING | OCTOBER 2025

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‘High-energy chardonnay with hints of green apple, wet stone, peppery oak, nutty yeast and oyster shell flavours. A mix of purity and power. A thoroughbred that promises to age magnificently.’  96 POINTS | BOB CAMPBELL MW | JULY 2025

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‘Like the Greywacke, this is marked by smoky/flinty reduction, and has that zesty clementine-peel character as well as mealy, creamy roundness. This is less extreme on the palate, with excellent fruit at the core. Deep, gently chewy and elegant. All clementine on the mouth-watering finish.’

17.5 POINTS |  JULIA HARDING MW | MAY 2026

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‘Concentrated, fine, mineral and expressive. A powerful wine with lovely citrus intensity, layered complexity and good acidity. Such refinement here allied to power. Amazing.’

95 POINTS | JAMIE GOODE | JANURAY 2026

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‘The Reed vineyard is located in the Central Wairau, where the Wairau meets the Waihopai River. Matured in new and seasoned French oak puncheons (40% new oak). The wine is bursting with peach and ripe pineapple, toasty oak that glimmers and gleams in glossy furniture lacquer and cedar spice. Yuzu curd and papaya flavours heighten with each sip. Oak amplifies the fruit yet still manages an energetic shift into creamy kefir in the mid-palate. Toast and honey. Persistent, zesty and warm, with excellent flavour length. A show-stopper.’

95 POINTS | SHANTEH WALE | HALLIDAY | MARCH 2026

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‘The 2024 Chardonnay Reed Vineyard is certainly not shy. Power and punch align with masses of concentration in this young, tight Chardonnay. While it has incredible clarity of fruit, precision and momentum, the 2024 is aromatically unresolved: toast, grilled nuts, smokey bacon and flint make it difficult to pick out where oak influence and reduction begin. These scents seem to meld into one another until they are indistinguishable. Hand-picked and whole-bunch pressed with high solids, with no filtration of fining, this is raw and raunchy stuff. This interpretation of Chardonnay will be divisive, but there's no doubting its quality.’

From: 2025 New Zealand White Wines: Pump Up the Volume (Feb 2026)

94 POINTS | REBECCA GIBB MW | VINOUS | FEBRUARY 2026

* Top scoring Marlborough Chardonnay in the report

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‘The 2024 Reed Chardonnay is reductive and spicy on the nose, with freshly picked curry leaf, white peach, green apple and green olive brine. In the mouth, the wine is savory and layered with reduction, which carries through to the finish. Very good wine here, the fruit is restrained/delicate and sits beneath the winemaking, while the finish is long. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.’

From: New Zealand: A (Mostly) South Island Wrap (April 2026)

94 POINTS | ERIN LARKIN | WINE ADVOCATE | APRIL 2026

*Second-equal highest Chardonnay score in the report

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‘A delicious wine with a fine balance between fruit power and wine maker inputs. Aromas of fresh white and yellow stone fruits, grapefruit peel and apple. These fruit ideas are framed by a a judicious and delicate hand showing fine lees and barrel spices, some newer wood and definitively older barrel suggestions. Full-bodied with a satin mouthfeel then fine tannins and plenty of acidity. A wine that will age well with best drinking from 2026 through 2032.’

94 POINTS | CAMERON DOUGLAS MS | AUGUST 2025

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‘Strong, smoky, struck flint reduction dominates when first poured, requiring vigorous aeration to dislodge. The palate is sleek and saline with an incredibly tense acid backbone. It briefly opens with air to reveal grilled lemon, oyster shell and rosemary flowers before closing down with crushed rock and subtle cinnamon oak on the finish. Impressively concentrated yet taut young wine which will need time to absorb its reduction before it is ready for prime time. This is firmly in the modernist camp and will age gradually on its axis of acidity and austerity’.

94 POINTS | STEPHEN WONG | OCTOBER 2025

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‘Sophie + Matt = True. What a couple! This couple makes world class wines. Sophie is Master of Wine while Matt is high-end wine maker (recently awarded the best wine maker in New Zealand). This is truly a winning combination. Blank Canvas Reed Vineyard Chardonnay 2024 is a project where they source the best grape material from the single vineyard Reed (Burgundy clone Chardonnay). Whole bunches are picked and later spontaneously fermented (for those who find interest in such details) followed by 11 months in French oak barrels. The wine is then bottled unfiltered. Blank Canvas’ Chardonnay is so intense, so vibrating, so full of life. Tastes of fresh apples, ripe lemon (both baked and fresh), flint and some smoke. Juicy and saline aftertaste that just keep on giving. Highly sophisticated. You are not even close to finding wines of this caliber from Burgundy without paying more than 1000 NOK (Reed = 419,90 NOK).

93 POINTS | VALUE 6/6 | VG NEWSPAPER NORWAY MAY 2026

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‘When I tasted this, I was almost beside myself with excitement - damn, this was delicious. Blank Canvas Wines was founded as a project in 2012. They source fruit from growers in several of the best regions in New Zealand, selecting only fruit of a quality they believe is high enough to make wines they are truly satisfied with. Their standards for fruit quality seem exceptionally high, because this is without question one of the best Chardonnays I’ve tasted from Marlborough. The wine is pale golden in colour, with an intense nose marked by baked lemon, white peach, a pronounced reductive character of flint and struck-match smoke, along with butter and well-integrated oak. The sun-ripened fruit is balanced by vibrant acidity on the palate, with an oily and fairly full-bodied texture, finishing with remarkable length.’

93 POINTS | VALUE 10 | KARL INGGARD SAETHER | NETTAVISEN | MAY 2026

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Selected in the Top Marlborough Chardonnay – John Saker Tasting   ‘This is really smart. A salty, silvery line of reduction and lively acidity underpins a salivating, weighty core of fruit. Lime and sweet lemon, green tea, green olives. It’s a high-revving, restless style, though disciplined and finely structured. Bold and wonderfully refreshing.’

JOHN SAKER | DECEMBER 2025