Leah in the Spotlight

With the official start of winter this week in New Zealand, we have been hunkering down fireside with winter fare and plenty of pinot. Apparently we're not the only ones - our 2009 Leah Pinot Noir has been featured in several publications around the world recently. We think it's absolutely delicious at the moment - and so does UK wine writer Jane MacQuitty (The Times):


‘New world wines, including the Kiwis, do age. Named after Michael Seresin’s daughter and made from grapes grown in all three Seresin vineyards, this delicious 2009 is the entry level wine for the estate. But you’d never know, as this French oak barrique-aged pinot noir bursts with the sort of juicy, spicy, strawberry-laced fruit that Côte d’Or worshippers adore. Enjoy this lively, 14 per cent pinot noir now with big food, or keep it in the cellar for a few years.’

And speaking of big food, Gourmet Traveller magazine have matched Leah with this Fish and Prawn Pie in their May issue. I can't wait to try it out once the winter vegetables in the Seresin garden get a little bigger!


Fish and Prawn Pie
Prep time 40 minutes, cook time 45 minutes (plus cooling).
Serves 4

4 salad onions, halved
25ml extra virgin olive oil
1 leek stalk, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
3 thyme sprigs
1 fresh bay leaf
1 garlic clove, crushed
30ml Noilly Prat dry vermouth
15g butter, coarsely chopped
15g plain flour
250ml hot fish stock
200g peeled raw prawns (roughly 400g unpeeled), cut into 3 pieces
150g skinless snapper fillet, cut into 3cm dice
150g skinless blue eye trevally fillet, cut into 3cm dice
Finely grated zest of one lemon
1 small bunch each finely chopped dill and flat leaf parsley
375g sheet butter puff pastry
1 egg yolk for brushing

1. Blanch onions until tender (3-4 minutes). Drain, refresh the water, drain again, and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add leek, celery, thyme, bay leaf, garlic and blanched onion and stir occasionally until tender (5-6 minutes). Add vermouth, simmer until evaporated (1-2 minutes), then remove herbs and discard. Add butter, cook until melted, then add flour and stir until smooth and combined. Gradually add fish stock, a ladle at a time, stirring continuously until smooth, then simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture reaches a thick sauce consistency. Cool for 30 minutes, stir in prawns, fish, lemon rind, dill and parsley and season to taste. Transfer to a 1.25L oval pie dish, spreading evenly, then cover and set aside.
3. Preheat oven to 200C. Cut pastry into an oval big enough to cover the top of the pie dish with a 2.5cm overhang, place pastry on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush with yolk, season to taste with sea salt, sprinkle with a little cold water, then bake for 10 minutes. Reduce oven to 190C, place pie dish in oven and bake pastry and pie (separately) until pastry is golden and cooked through and pie mixture is hot (15-20 minutes) Remove baking paper from pie dish, top with pastry.

Serve hot with a green salad dressed with Seresin olive oil and a glass of 2009 Leah Pinot Noir.

You can't beat great Bangers & Mash!

Local Blenheim restaurant, Hotel d'Urville has created a dish to match our 2008 Leah Pinot Noir. For dinner, you can enjoy a glass of Leah beautifully complemented by a plate of spicy venison sausages, swede mash, spiced red cabbage and game jus. The dish is a new take on a winter favourite - each sausage is made with all natural ingredients, just meat, herbs and spices. Executive Chef, Maree Connolly, says "a good sausage with mash is a thing of beauty - everyone loves them!"

Hotel d'Urville maitre'd Jesse Gould is pictured here with the match. Picture courtesy of the Marlborough Express.

For those that cannot make it to Hotel d'Urville, Maree has kindly shared the recipe for one of her favourite winter meals, Lamb tagine - best enjoyed alongside a glass of Pinot Noir!

Lamb Tagine

1 Kg lean cubed lamb, cut from the shoulder

3 Tblsp oil

1 large onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp cinnamon

1 Tblsp fresh tarragon, chopped (or 1 tsp dried)

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

2 cups chicken stock (or water)

1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 tsp orange zest

Salt and pepper to taste

15 pitted prunes

2 Tblsp clear honey

¼ cup blanched almonds

¼ cup sesame seeds

¼ cup raisins

Heat oil in large pan. Sear lamb in batches over moderate heat until evenly browned. Add onions, garlic and sauté until tender. Add spices, herbs, stock, orange juice and orange zest. Mix well and pour into large oven proof dish. Cover and bake 1 ½ hours at 160 C. Check occasionally and if getting dry add more stock.

Check seasoning. Add Prunes and Honey. Bake a further 10 minutes to soften prunes.

In a small pan, fry almonds and sesame seeds to golden brown. Add raisins, swirl in pan to heat through and sprinkle over lamb to serve.

Serve with couscous or rice.

A Seresin Dinner Party

Our Swedish Cellarhand, Lars Gabrielsson, came to us from a career as a Sommelier in some of Stockholm's top restaurants. He is also very talented in the kitchen and we often seek his opinion when it comes to matching food and wine. He pictured below sorting Pinot Noir with Ellie, one of our Vintage interns.

Below is one his Spring recipes complete with wine match - perfect for your next dinner party.

Rack of Lamb With fresh herbs and Seresin Lemon Olive Oil

1 whole Rack of Lamb
3 Cloves of Fresh Garlic
½ -1 Teaspoon of good quality salt
A good amount of your favorite garden herbs
1 Tablespoon of Seresin Lemon Olive Oil

Sear off the Rack of Lamb on your Barbecue or in a hot pan just for a few seconds on each side until brown.

Put the Garlic, fresh herbs, salt and Lemon Olive Oil in a Pestle and Mortar and work it in to a paste and taste off with pepper.

Rub the paste into the Rack of Lamb and cook in the oven at 220 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or on the Barbecue until pink in the middle. Let the meat rest for a few minutes before cutting the rack into individual cutlets. Serve with a new potato salad and a bottle of 2008 Seresin Leah Pinot Noir.

Christmas Feast

Eyvind Hellstrøm, chef at Restaurant Bagatelle in Oslo, Norway's only 2-star Michelin rated restaurant, recently contributed recipes for a sumptuous Christmas menu to the culinary section of one of Norway's main newspapers.

Even without a grasp of the Norwegian language, the pictures of chef Hellstrøm selecting the ingredients and photographs of the various dishes tell the story well. If they aren't quite enough to get your mouth-watering, his recommendation of our Leah Pinot Noir to accompany the duck dish might just do the trick.

Merry Christmas and Bon Appétit.

Soulful, Supple Leah

Our 2007 Seresin 'Leah' Pinot Noir has been getting a bit of attention in the wine media lately.

Writing in the Independent Wine Monthly, Emma Jenkins, who hasn't always been entirely positive about Marlborough Pinot Noir, found the Leah a nice surprise: "Named after proprietor Michael Seresin's daughter, it is a soulful example of the variety; finely tuned, fragrant, supple and very satisfying indeed. It has an enticing nose of ripe fruit, lots of pretty spice and something just a touch savoury to pique one's interest. The palate is rich yet restrained, with lovely fruit, and again that touch of savoury depth, plus wonderful balance and decent length. The complete package really. And with a RRP of $37, which doesn't seem unreasonable at all. Seresin are committed to organic and biodynamic production so one's conscience is clear to drink as many bottles of this lovely pinot as is necessary. Should cellar nicely too should you be that way inclined."

In the latest issue of Gourmet Traveller Wine, Huon Hooke & Bob Campbell's Top 100 New Release Wines features the 07 Leah as well. With 5 stars and 93 points the wine is described as moderately intense, very complex and more interesting than other more overtly fruity wines from Marlborough in 2007.

2007 was a very special year for us with our normally low yields taken back even further by a cold flowering, so there's not much of this wine left - with almost 6 months still to wait for the 2008.

Playing a good hand

Writing for the Times in the UK, wine critic Jane MacQuitty had some lovely things to say about Seresin's 2006 Leah Pinot Noir.

"Pinot noir is not Marlborough’s strongest suit but in the right hands, such as Seresin, aged in French barriques, the result is a spectacular, smoky, gamey red with fine red fruits on the finish."