Villa Maria plans aimed at tourists

By DITA DE BONI

Villa Maria plans to build a wine-themed tourism centre in South Auckland.

New Zealand's last remaining large, privately owned wine company intends building a $15 million winery, visitor centre, retail outlet and accommodation facility on Montgomerie Rd in Ihumatao, outside Mangere.

The 26ha property will also feature chardonnay, gewurztraminer and merlot plantings.

Villa Maria is seeking resource management consents from the Manukau City Council, which is expected to take up to nine months.

The company is confident of gaining consents as the site is near the Otuatua Stonefields, another tourism attraction being developed by the council.

The centre, which will bottle and distribute wine from the company's wineries in the Hawkes Bay and Marlborough, will also provide jobs, says wine operations manager Fabian Yukich.

"The site will be mainly focused on the tourist trade, and we will be in a prime position being so close to the airport.

"We would expect up to 100,000 visitors annually when it is all up and running in a couple of years, catching tourists at the end or the beginning of their New Zealand travels."

Mr Yukich said director and founder George Fistonich, himself, and a company architect spent "around a year and a half walking over thousands of acres of land to get a site with the right feel and ambience."

The chosen site, an old volcanic crater, was not for sale when first sighted by the trio but was eventually wrestled off the New Zealand Steel pension fund for an undisclosed price.

The company plans to bottle the 2002 vintage at the site, and will move its Kirkbride Rd winery to Montgomerie Rd over the next few years.

Mr Yukich said Villa Maria had not ventured far from South Auckland in its search for a new site, as the Fistonich family had run wineries there since the 1940s and had a historic attachment to the area.

The new development comes six months after Villa Maria unveiled its "future-proof" Marlborough winery, costing $7.5 million.

Villa Maria is the only private company left in New Zealand to sell more than 2 million litres annually. The other "Category III" producers are publicly owned - Nobilos bought out by Australian concern BRL Hardy this year, and No 1 Montana bought No 2 Corbans this week.

Villa Maria's production volume is estimated at 10,000 tonnes a year, compared with Corban's 17,000 tonnes and Montana's 30,000 tonnes.