Winemaker living dream of making wine by hand in inner-city Dunedin winery

Brendan Seal, founder of Urbn Vino. Photo / Supplied

Brendan Seal makes about 200 cases of Pinot Noir by hand. That's the way he likes it.

A one-man band running an urban winery in the heart of Dunedin, this is his idea of living the dream. He makes two varieties, with capacity to make about 3000 bottles each year.

A winemaker with 20-plus years of experience, owning his own wine label has been a long-running dream. He says he first toyed with the idea 20 years ago when he saw it being done in the United States, and it has been rattling around in his head ever since.

Seal launched his passion project, aptly named Urbn Vino, about 18 months ago. It is a part-time operation at present, but growing, he says. He crowdfunded $20,000 in 2016 and added about $25,000 of his savings to start the business.

What's different about the label?

Seal makes it all by hand in an increasingly automated industry. He says he likes the process of "getting his hands dirty". He's also a fan of squishing the grapes by foot.

He puts the grapes into the fermenter by hand, then plunges the grapes by hand. "At the end of that you hand press it as well, so that involves using a traditional basket press; you don't plug it in, you just crank it by hand. When you've pressed that hard enough, [you'll know] and do it by taste.

"I quite like the tangible aspect of touching grapes. I actually like being covered in wine and grapes, it's a nice feeling," Seal tells the Herald.

He began winemaking in Central Otago in 1999. Since then, with exception of the past few years, he has been travelling the world winemaking. Prior to relocating to Dunedin to start Urbn Vino, Seal was based in Cromwell.

Urban wineries are commonplace in California and San Francisco, and in London, Paris and Australia, whereby winemakers source grapes to be turned into wine in city centre locations. Seal says urban wineries lend themselves to tourism and tours and to show people the process of winemaking.

Urbn Vino began offering tours at the beginning of December, pairing the winemaking experience with tastings and food. Those on his tours are able to see grapes fermenting and wine being made in March, April and May, in its raw stage later in the year and then again before it is bottled, he says.

"What I like about what I'm doing is you get to see the winemaking in action," he says.

"You can go to a winery or vineyard in Marlborough or Central Otago, or anywhere around the world, and you don't get to talk to the winemaker and you certainly don't get to see what's going on behind the scenes.

Brendan Seals says he enjoys the hands-on approach to making his wine. Photo / Supplied

"I want to break down the barriers and demystify wine," says Seal, who for about seven years taught "wine knowledge" as part of a wine business and tourism course at the University of Otago.

Dunedin is the "perfect" location to operate an urban winery, being located in the South and given its "strong links" to Central Otago, where he sources his grapes.

Seal says the future of his business is tourism-based as he doesn't want to increase the volumes of wine he is producing dramatically. Longer term he wants to hire someone to help him run the business. He is also open to the possibility of a hospitality division.

He says he has made the conscious decision to keep his winemaking methods traditional.

"I don't necessarily do it to be different, I do it because I really like it.

"After a wee while of working for big companies, eventually I got sick of listening [to the machines]. There's a lot of tools involved in winemaking; fork lifts and mechanical presses which make a lot of noise, and compressors going. The bigger the winery, the more equipment they have to have.

"I really like serenity in my work environment, and this gives me that," he says.

"Everything is done by hand, there's no machines going. It's just peaceful. That has an effect on me and probably an impact on my wine, which seems bizarre because I'm [located] in the middle of the city and you'd think that doesn't work that way, but it really does."

Urbn Vino buys around three tonnes of grapes each year. Photo / Supplied

Along with making the wine by hand, he is also no stranger to the traditional method of crushing grapes - by foot. Red wines work well via that method, he says.

He says there are a number of winemakers reverting back to old school techniques.

"Some of the most interesting wines I've tried in the last 12 months out of Central Otago have been using that method," Seal says, adding that he did not enter the industry looking to make thousands of cases of wine.

"It's not the difference between making a good wine and making a great wine - that is all to do with all the little things that add up."

Still Point Wines and the Alpine Wine Co are two other South Island companies making wine by traditional means.

Urbn Vino wine is made in Dunedin's city centre. Photo / Supplied

NZ Winegrowers chief executive Philip Gregan said there were more than a handful of winemakers and wine companies making their wine by hand. However, he said it is only doable if volumes allow.

"There certainly does seem to be an interest in what people may call natural, very low intervention wines and it appears to be driven by a particular group of consumers who are really interested in these [methods]," Gregan said.

"Winemakers are clearly experimenting. New Zealand is well-known for its innovation and people are looking all the time at different ways, new ways and old ways of doing things to see if that produces wine that's interesting or more dynamic - that's one of the things that's happening [in the industry] at the moment."

Gregan was unable to comment on whether wine produced by hand or traditional means made a difference to the taste.

"Hand plunging, you'd see that in wineries all over New Zealand."