Seresin Estate

The Free Bacchus Story

Michael Seresin shot Midnight Express, Angela’s Ashes, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Gravity and two Planet of the Apes films. He bought land in Marlborough in 1992, and not as a wine project. He bought it to run as a farm.

That distinction is visible on the ground. The property carries 165 animals — cows, sheep and goats moving through the vineyards — more than five thousand olive trees and several produce gardens, alongside around 274 acres of vines. The biodynamic standard asks for a farm rather than a monoculture with preparations sprayed over it, and most certified estates read that requirement generously. This one did not, which is why the olives and the livestock are structural here rather than decorative.

What brought him back to New Zealand was a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc drunk at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Marlborough has since been defined by that grape, sold at volume, which makes the shape of this property an argument as much as a farm.

It is the largest Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyard in Marlborough — an awkward fact for anyone who maintains that this kind of farming only works at small scale. Certification here also covers the winery and not only the vineyard, a wider scope and a good deal less common.

Published accounts date the two certifications differently from our own record. Until that is resolved we print no year, because a date on a certificate is the one thing on a page like this that has to be exactly right.