PYRAMID VALLEY

Mike and Claudia Weersing came to New Zealand in 1996, when Mike began making wine with Tim and Judy Finn at Neudorf. After a 5 year search they purchased a farm in the Pyramid Valley, North Canterbury. The home block vineyards have been established according to rules that Mike grew to respect and inherently trust, during his time in Burgundy: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay have been planted on clay-limestone soils, on scarp slopes, at a density of 10,000-12,000 vines per hectare. The vineyard has been biodynamically managed from inception.

Whilst waiting for their home vineyard to establish itself, an ambition to create a range of wines from other sites was realised - the Growers Collection. All of our wines are fermented with their own yeast starters, cultured every year, from the vineyard itself. Working with yeasts from that site, of that season, is an important step towards transparency, authenticity and honesty of the wine in the bottle. Our cultures allow very long, very regular ferments: most of our whites ferment for more than a year. During this time, the wine is protected, so no sulphur is necessary. After so long a ferment, the wine is stable: thus most of our wines are bottled unfiltered, again with little or no sulphur. Each wine is allowed to flower as it wishes. If the Pinot Blanc stops with 4 grams residual sugar, so be it.

On our home vineyards, we’ve sponsored a marriage of clay-limestone soils to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, hoping to bring to the wine world a special, new place-voice. With the Growers Collection, we are allowed to work with admired colleagues, and with sites, soils, varieties different than those at home. All of our wines are devoted to people and place; all bring rich rewards of community.

Mike Weersing

Mike studied oenology and viticulture in Burgundy, beginning at the Lycee Viticole in Beaune, and continuing at the Universite de Bourgogne in Dijon. He has worked extensively in the vineyards and cellars of Europe, for producers such as Hubert de Montille, Domaine de la Pousse d'Or, and Nicolas Potel in Burgundy; Jean-Michel Deiss and Marc Kreydenweiss in Alsace; and Ernst Loosen in the Mosel. He has made wine in France and in Spain for Randall Graham of Bonny Doon Vineyards, vinifying in the Rhone Valley, the Languedoc-Roussillon, and the Navarra. New world vintages include apprenticeships with James Halliday at Coldstream Hills in the Yarra Valley of Australia, and with Russ Raney at Evesham Wood in Oregon's Eola Hills.