Villa Maria forging ahead with organics - Shared Kitchen

ByJulie Biuso 3 November 201531 August 2023 1 Comment

Villa Maria is unashamedly family oriented. When you dine with them, with their founder Sir George Fistonich and wife Lady Gail, with their winemakers and staff, you become part of the family, part of their story. That story started a long time ago, in 1961, when a young lad called George leased a few acres of land in Mangere from his father and planted it with grapes. More than half a century later, the company, now New Zealand’s third-largest winery and still wholly New Zealand owned, and having taken the innovative and bold step to become a cork-free zone in 2001 and move to screw caps, continues to scoop more medals for their wines than any other New Zealand wine company. Is that because they produce more wines than most other wine companies? A cynic may say that, but quite simply the answer is because they produce excellent wines across the board, across all their vineyards and all grape varieties.

I suspect if Sir George...