"His friends and family told him 'you have to go on. This is your dream and your passion. You can't stop now. You have done so much hard work, you have to keep going.' He was inspired to keep going," Ms Darling said.
The success of their wine is because of a combination of things, including the perfect climate the Wairarapa offers, the soil content on their Te Muna Rd vineyard and Julicher's top-class "dedicated" winemaker, Outi Jakovirta from Finland.
The vineyard is sited on the old Huangarua River path beneath the Aorangi Ranges, providing the perfect soil for growing grapes, Ms Darling told the Times-Age.
"Thousands and thousands of years ago this was all the Huangarua River so it has left behind all this gorgeous rich alluvial soil. It's gravelly, free-draining and it has all the right minerals in it that grapes like."
While Mr Julicher was "looking for something easier to do" when he took over the property, it's not easy work growing grapes, she said.
"It's a lot of hard work but Wim's philosophy has always been; you treat every bunch as a potential gold medal winner ... you care for your vineyard with that in mind and obviously if you work hard, you end up producing good grapes."
On top of ideal soil, their winemaker was behind the successful wines, Mr Julicher said.
"She's dedicated and has passion," he said.
He planted his first vines in 1998 and stopped planting in 2003.
The vines cover 15ha - 48,000 vines in all.
They are also surrounded by "great" vineyards which put Martinborough on the wine trail, including Escarpment, Craggy Range and Te Hera; all gold winners for their wines, he said.
However, Martinborough vineyards needed to do better at promoting their product, the vineyard owners says.
"We are all helping to put Martinborough on the map ... it's a way of showing Martinborough makes fantastic wines. That we are capable of being up there with the rest of the world, but sadly some of the vineyards aren't entering competitions because it's costly and it's hard ... these things all cost money and some of the smaller vineyards just don't have the dough ... but their wines are fantastic," Ms Darling said.
"We don't work enough together," Mr Julicher said.
Their hope is every local vineyard will enter at least one competition annually.
"If they win something it will remind people that we really produce good quality world class wine ... we just have to remind consumers how good we are."
