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 Nicola and Paul, Gus, Dallas and Surrey, Geoff, to Janet and Nicholas, to all of the friends who have helped us to make a life here, we offer simple, sincere, love and thanks.
CLAUDIA & MIKE
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.
