Braving the Cold for the Gold

Our olive harvest began on a frosty Wednesday morning. We hand-harvested our smaller trees, used what we fondly refer to as “the tickler” for the medium sized trees, and a shaker machine on our more mature ones (pictured left to right).



To make our oil, the olives are pressed locally in our shared processing facility, with a certified organic process. Here is a picture of the liquid joy! The pomace (olive pulp and crushed pits) will be recycled through our compost heaps.
We grow several Italian varieties of olives, including Leccino, Minerva, Frantoio, Pendolino and Maurino, which will be harvested over a period of several weeks. Our olive harvest will be finished by the winter solstice (June 21), which will also mark the conclusion of this growing season for our entire estate.

Seresin & Suite Gallery

Suite Gallery would like to invite Seresin customers to attend the opening of highly regarded painter, Callum Arnold's new exhibition, and enjoy a glass of Seresin wine. Callum's work is highly sought after, and according to those in the know, challenging the traditional portrayal of our landscape as static. His current exhibition features the West Coast of the South Island, with paintings reminiscent of journeys - like a blur of landscapes shown through a windscreen.

The opening reception is at Suite Gallery, 69 Owen Street, Newtown, Wellington on Wednesday May 28 from 5:30pm

Looking for Worms

The newest additions to our family are two happy little worm-seeking chicks, Pepa and Mysh (black and yellow, respectively). They hatched in early May and have been hand-raised by Lisa.

Busy with Biodynamics

The autumn is a busy time of year for our biodynamic activities. It is the time when all of the energies and nutrients that have made their way into the vegetative part of the plants now return to the earth (think of it as the earth inhaling). It’s at this time that we make and bury the majority of our preparations so they can receive this returning goodness. During the last descending moon cycle, while the moon was in an earth sign (April 28th and 29th) we made our biodynamic preparation 500 (filled cow horns with fresh manure), 503 (stuffed cow intestines with dried chamomile flowers), 504 (packed a clay pipe with dried stinging nettle) and 506 (wrapped dried dandelion in a cow mesentery) [pictured clockwise]. These were then each buried in their own clay pots, as was our preparation 502 (stags bladders filled with dried yarrow) which had been hanging in our walnut tree for the summer. We also made our preparation 505 (filled a cow and sheep skull with oak bark and submerged them into a barrel of water and decaying vegetation) and unearthed our preparations 501 (cow horns filled with ground quartz) and 504 (the stinging nettle from last year).

Parker's Reviews

Back in January Seresin enjoyed a visit from Neal Martin, wine writer for Robert Parker's influential magazine, The Wine Advocate. Here's what he had to say about Seresin in the May edition of Wine Advocate.

“Cinematographer Michael Seresin does not own Harry Potter’s magic wand to make great Marlborough wine, but he does have the second best thing in the form of estate manager Colin Ross, an Australian who makes Nicolas Joly look a lightweight biodynamist. Having purchased his first 167-acre parcel of vines in the Wairau in 1992 that constitutes the “Home Vineyard,” Seresin’s wines debuted with the 1996 vintage; since then he has purchased the “Raupo Creek Vineyard” in Omaka, which is undergoing organic conversion and the “Tatou Vineyard” at the western end of the Wairau Valley. All fruit is sourced from these parcels, hand-picked and sorted before being whole-bunch pressed with young English-born winemaker Clive Dougall in charge of the winemaking. Seresin is certainly a name to look out for, producing some wonderful, complex, natural wines.”

Robert Parker's rating system employs a 50-100 point quality scale. Any wine scored over 90 points can be seen as 'outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.'

Seven of Seresin's wines received 90 or more.

2006 Reserve Chardonnay - 93 points
2007 Gewurztraminer - 91 points
2006 Leah Pinot Noir - 91 points
2006 Pinot Gris - 92 points
2006 Rachel Pinot Noir - 90 points
2007 Reserve Sauvignon Blanc - 90 points
2001 Riesling - 91 points

Riesling Review

In the April/May issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine, Bob Campbell MW gives the 2005 Seresin Riesling 5 stars and 94 points. He describes it as an "Intense and vibrant organic riesling with lovely lime, honeycomb and mineral flavours. Now showing good bottle development, with the flavours beginning to build, mellow and integrate". Cheers Mr Campbell, we'll drink to that !