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| "You may think you know New Zealand wines but I can assure you that until you have tasted Pyramid Valley, you have no idea."
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate |
| | | | "Mike and Claudia Weersing purchased a farm in the Pyramid Valley, near Waikari in North Canterbury, in 2000. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are planted at a density of 12,000 vines per hectare on clay-limestone soils. The vineyards have never seen herbicides, pesticides, systemic fungicides, or inorganic fertilizers. In the same fashion, no commercial yeasts or extraction enzymes are used and the wines are bottled with no fining or filtration.
Mike studied oenology and viticulture in Burgundy, beginning at the Lycée Viticole in Beaune and continuing at the Université de Bourgogne in Dijon. He has worked in Europe for producers including 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."
Allen Meadows, Burghound |
| | "When I first sampled the earliest releases from this left-of-center producer, I was so drawn to the signature …. There was a spark of ‘otherness’ about the wines that was so unlike anything else in New Zealand, it was difficult to say if proprietors Mike and Claudia Weersing were geniuses or mad or mad geniuses. I’m still kind of thinking there’s an element of the latter going on here, but at least my first visit in 2011 and follow-up visit [in 2015] have confirmed to me that they are most definitely wine geniuses.
Having searched New Zealand for their ideal plot of land to produce Pinot Noir and Chardonnay of the very highest quality, the Weersings were tempted by comradery to plant amongst their friends in Central Otago. But it was the unique, clay-limestone soils and scarp slopes near Waikari in North Canterbury that stole their hearts. In 2000 they planted vines in one of New Zealand’s newest and remotest wine regions - so new and remote it still doesn’t really have a name other than ‘North Canterbury.’ Claudia is the biodynamic green-thumb and Mike is the Burgundian trained winemaker in this small-scale, hands-on operation. Everything in the fields and winery is as natural as natural can be and …. the results speak for themselves: astonishingly good, terroir-expressive wines that will challenge all your preconceptions."
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate |
| | "The world already knows New Zealand makes good Pinot Noir, but the question it is now posing is: 'How far can it go?' I talked to a dozen of the country’s finest proponents of this grape and they all agreed on the answer: 'All the way.'
But it is when and to what level that intrigues me. Mike Weersing at Pyramid Valley says, 'I believe New Zealand Pinot has emerged as a distinct animal, different from other Pinot styles: less densely tannic than Burgundy, with brighter fruit than Oregon, and more vibrancy and energy than is typical of California. For me, the greatest challenge is overcoming a sensibility that prizes - and too often prioritizes - overt varietal character. Pinot’s raison d'être is its transparency: it is most profound when saying little or nothing about itself.'
There is a resonance to this mantra and it brings up a subject that was echoed by each of the pioneering winemakers I spoke with. It is not the grape, per se, which holds the key to the potential of the wine, but the vineyards themselves and that which the grapes bring to the finished wine."
Matthew Jukes, Decanter |
| | | Pyramid Valley is one of the only New Zealand vineyards planted on limestone.
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| "The 2020 Field Of Fire Chardonnay is flinty and spiced, layered with curry leaf, tobacco, brine, preserved citrus rind, and hints of crushed nuts. In the mouth, the wine is rich and undulating and saturating. The fruit is wrapped around a core of scintillating acidity — it really penetrates the palate and touches the soul. It plays a defibrillation role within the fruit. We all have different preferences in wine, but I am absolutely turned on by the fruit and acid interplay here. Thrilling. Detailed. Rich .... The wine spent 22 months in barrel and 4 months in tank prior to bottling. Due to wild ferments, it struggled to get through full malolactic fermentation. This is a wonderful thing, I feel. It's an exciting drink. The pH is around 3, total acidity is around 8."
96+
Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate |
| | | | "The 2020 Pinot Noir Earth Smoke is a massively different wine from its stablemate Angel Flower, giving a more expansive wine that blossoms in the mouth without any sense of weight. There's elegance and sense of precision. And do you know what? It feels special .... with sandalwood, fennel, agave and white pepper characters in abundance alongside pure cherry fruit. The finish is fresh and precise."
96
Rebecca Gibb MW, Vinous |
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