Reed Vineyard Chardonnay 2024

$65.00 NZD

PDF Tasting Sheet

Vineyard: Reed Vineyard
Subregion: Wairau and Waihopai Rivers confluence | Central Wairau
Region: Marlborough
Vintage: 2024
Soil Type: Moderate to low-vigour, thin topsoil on stone and clays
Clone: Clone 95
Viticulture: Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand Certified (SWNZ)
Growers: Pete and Anne Reed

Appellation Marlborough Wine Certified (AMW) | Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand Certified (SWNZ)
Vegan | Vegetarian

The Reed Vineyard Chardonnay is a wine of remarkable texture and depth. Its high-toned aromas of white peach, grapefruit, and grilled toast intertwine beautifully with subtle flint and silex complexities. The vivid, finely-tuned acidity carries the powerful yet restrained oak with precision and poise. Cultivated by Chardonnay artisans Pete and Anne Reed, these meticulously cared-for vines thrive in the clay loam soils at the confluence of the Wairau and Waihopai rivers. You may enjoy the wine in its youth for its crystalline purity, or cellar it to discover the layers of tertiary development over the years to come.

Our Reed Vineyard Chardonnay is guided by a single aim: let the vineyard speak with clarity while using thoughtful, but simple winemaking to reveal texture and depth.

Handpicked and whole-bunch pressed, the unsettled free-run juice was filled straight to French oak puncheons (40% new). Fermentation began naturally with indigenous yeasts and progressed long and slow without disturbance, followed by natural malolactic conversion in spring.

The wine spent 11 months on fine lees in oak to build mid-palate richness, after which it was combined, gently settled and carefully racked before being bottled unfiltered to retain purity, texture and the true expression of the site.

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Reviews

97 Points | Best Winemaker | NZ Wines of the Year List 2026

"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."

- Susie and Peter New Zealand Wines of the Year

5 STARS

"‘The refined 2024 vintage (*****)was hand-picked at the confluence of the Waihopai and Wairau valleys. Bright, light lemon/green, it is a mouth-filling, 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."

- Michael Cooper MA ONZM

96 Points (5 stars)

"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."

- Jane Skilton MW | Inside Burgundy

96 Points - Top100 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 savoryorange peel. Medium- to full-bodied with tense, lively acidity and a tightphenolic structure, showing expressive fruit, smoke, minerals and crushedstones at the end. A beautiful wine. Drink now or hold. Screw cap."

- James Suckling

96 Points

"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."

- Bob Campbell MW

95 Points

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

- Jamie Goode

95 Points

"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."

- Shanteh Wale

94 Points

"An excellent bouquet and palate, saline and fresh, stone fruit and wood smoke, mineral and baking spice scents. A satin-cream mouthfeel as the wine touches followed by flavours of grapefruit peel the peach, apple then a layer of spices from wood and lees effect. Harmoniously dry with complexity and texture. Best drinking from day of purchase or early 2025 through 2028+."

- Cameron Douglas MS

94 Points - Top scoring Marlborough Chardonnay in the Report

"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."

- Rebecca Gibb MW | Vinous | From: 2025 New Zealand White Wines: Pump Up the Volume

94 Points

"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."