Pyramid Valley Wines (Pyramid Valley): Local Business Online Business 548 Pyramid Valley Rd Pyramid Valley, Canterbury 7491 NZ +64-27-223-3312 http://pyramidvalley.co.nz/ Wine to us is a genie, genius loci; our job is to coax it from its rock to bottle. Every gesture we make, in vineyard and winery, is a summons to this spirit of place. Biodynamics, hand-based viticulture, low yields, natural winemaking these are some of the means weve adopted better to record and transmit this voice. For example, all of our wines are fermented with their own yeast starters, cultured every year, from the vineyard itself. If wine is meant to be the bottled breath of a certain place, from a certain moment in time, then we feel that working with yeasts from that site, of that season, is an important step towards transparency and authenticity. 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 RS, so be it. If the Gewurztraminer ferments to dryness, that is its choice. As my friend and hero Edmond Vatan once replied when I asked him about malolactic fermentation, Pwah, le malo, si ca se fait, ca se fait. So, at home weve 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. Claudia and I are extraordinarily lucky to have found a family with whom to share our home, farm and vineyard. Their care, talent, kindness and heart, give essential meaning to what we do. The good energy they bring to each day allows this place, and all of its inhabitants - animal, plant, etheric - to flourish. So to all of the friends who have helped us to make a life here, we offer simple sincere, love and thanks. . Mike and Claudia Weersing came to New Zealand in 1996, when Mike began making wine with Tim and Judy Finn at Neudorf Vineyards in Nelson. After a long and intensive search to find a site for their own vineyard, they purchased a farm in the Pyramid Valley, near Waikari in North Canterbury, in 2000. Claudia was born in Schleswig, Germany, and moved as a child to the U.S. She has studied fashion design, and is a skilled clothesmaker. She now brings her precise eye, two green thumbs, and a dazzling smile to the management of our home vineyards. She is happiest, and most often to be found, among her vines. Claudia is a committed biodynamicist; hers is a guiding and beautiful spirit on our land. 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 Grahm of Bonny DoonVineyards, 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. The home vineyard has been established according to rules that Mike grew to respect and inherently to trust during his time studying and working 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. Each block is planted to reflect a specific soil type hence the somewhat irregular looking blocks. In total we have on