Blank Canvas Mckee Vineyard Marlborough Gruner Veltliner 2017

The story of Blank Canvas is entwined with that of husband and wife team, Matt Thomson and Sophie Parker-Thomson MW. Having completed over fifty back-to-back vintages in both New Zealand and Europe as an award-winning winemaking consultant, Matt, together with Sophie, decided to create and build a wine brand together, with their first vintage in 2013. Blank Canvas embodies their own expression of art-meets-science with single-vineyard, small batch wines that push boundaries and challenge winemaking orthodoxies.

They work with nine exceptional, sustainable single vineyards, selected because of their suitability for the variety they're nurturing, with the right soil, microclimate and quality. This site-specific approach allows each vineyard to serve as a ""blank canvas,"" enabling the creation of distinctive wines that reflect their unique terroirs.

The fruit was hand-picked from The McKee Vineyard in the Rapaura sub-region, gently whole-bunch pressed and fermented in both stainless steel and 500L French oak puncheons (20 per cent new). A portion of the fermentation was conducted with indigenous yeasts, and a partial malolactic fermentation was allowed. It spent 11 months maturing on fine lees before bottling.