2023 - Blank Canvas, Tano Chardonnay

Screwcap. First vintage of a wine made in honour of Gaetano Tobin, friend of Matt and Sophie Thomson of Blank Canvas and fellow winemaker, whom they describe as a 'visionary' in Soave, mapping all the crus by hand. The vineyard is on Anandale Farm in the Blind River subregion of Marlborough. The idea was to make a Chablis-style Chardonnay in NZ. Hand-picked, free-run juice only, no settling, fermented spontaneously with full solids in bigger barrels and puncheons, untoasted, with thick staves. No temperature control (cool cellar) and no stirring or SO2 additions for the first year, allowing the wine to go through malo. 15 months on lees. TA 7 g/l, pH 3.2. Very slightly flinty at first, though this is less noticeable on the day after opening. There's subtle oak notes – creamy, mealy – and ripe citrus with a light note of fruit sweetness but the ripeness is just on the edge, so the fruit sings without being overly rich. There's also a combination of minerally crushed stones and something else I find hard to pinpoint, like a crushed aromatic waxy leaf. I can imagine this would develop a touch of lanolin and toast with bottle age. On the palate, there's immense finesse and tension. Absolutely no lack of fruit but it is knife-edge ripe, giving intensity rather than masses of fruit flavour. Pristine. Very gently rounded out by the lees. Given the full solids, I expected a little more struck-match character but here it is only a light flinty expression. Long and tense and likely to age well – and gets better and better after the bottle has been open a couple of days. This could easily be mistaken from good premier cru Chablis, even if it has that little bit of richness from New Zealand's cool but sunny climate. (JH)