CONGRATULATIONS  to Sézn's owner Debbie, head chef Matt Schmutsch, his right hand man Ben Doherty and the whole team at Sézn Restaurant & Bar. They have just received 4 stars and a rave review in the latest issue of Cuisine Magazine - on sale now. If you haven't yet had the pleasure of dining at Sézn then call Debbie to make a reservation on 03 ...

A beautiful looking bunch of Riesling grapes from the Georgres Road vineyard in Waipara. Is it ready to harvest ?

The weather has been amazing up until now, we couldnt have asked for better. But of course it cant last. This week is forecast to be a little unsettled with 2 or 3 days damp or wet weather. We still have some fruit out there on the vine and the task now will be to manage its arrival into the winery in the best possible shape. Too ...

As if you needed one. Riesling actually goes brilliantly with a lot of Pork dishes.

Pinot Gris, in all its glory. Harvested by hand a few days ago at 24.5 Brix. But what to do with it ? There seems to some murmuring around both the lack of any defined Pinot Gris style in NZ and the labelling or lack thereof on each bottle which doesnt alert the consumer as to the style they can expect. And fair enough too. Unless you ...

Punching down - a 2-3-4 times daily occurrence as we attempt to reintroduce the floating 'cap' of skins into the vinous liquid below. The CO2 gas produced as a by-product of fermentation by the yeasts pushes the grape skins to the surface. In our fermenters the cap would easily be strong enough to support the weight of a person, such is the power the ferment. ...

Ornithologically Harvested ? Is that a word ? It is now ! Heres a graphic example of what happens when you dont have bird netting in place. The birds werent exactly hanging around waiting for Brix levels to hit 21, for acids to fall into place or for seed tannin levels to mature. Once they got a taste for it there was no holding them back. ...

Day 2 of the Riesling and following a brief period of cold settling (10C) I have racked the clear-ish juice over to a new tank to begin fermentation. All the lees were discarded. Back on Day 1 the hand harveted Waipara fruit was whole bunch pressed and the press stopped at a maximum of 1.2 bar to retain only the best juice. No enzymes were used and only the ...

Heres a quick clip of us receiving our first batch of Pinot Noir from Waipara. The fruit is pretty clean but we run it over the sort table anyway just to clear out the odd bit of leaf and dodgy fruit. One great thing we opted to do when building the winery and buying new equipment (2007) was ...