Mountain Road Estate owners Dan and Kylie Zinsli and their three children Jackson, 10, Benjamin, 9, and Evalyn, 6, are looking forward to this year's Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail. Photo / Alyssa Smith
Mountain Road Estate owners Dan and Kylie Zinsli and their three children Jackson, 10, Benjamin, 9, and Evalyn, 6, are looking forward to this year's Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail. Photo / Alyssa Smith
South Taranaki lavender is among the best of the bunch.
The flourishing Normanby-based business, Mountain Road Estate, won silver at the New Zealand Lavender Growers’ Association Supreme Oil Awards this year for its Lavandula x intermedia Grosso plants and co-owner Dan Zinsli said it’s a great result.
“We’re pretty happy. We entered the awards in 2022 and received a silver and then took a break in 2023. To get another silver is awesome.”
He said the award-winning plant is a hybrid lavender containing a high oil yield, perfect for their distilling business.
“When people think of their nana’s lavender, this is what it is. It’s the most effective for sleep and stress reduction.”
Mountain Road Estate owners Dan and Kylie Zinsli with their three children Jackson, 10, Benjamin, 9, and Evalyn, 6. Photo / Alyssa Smith
Lavender hadn’t always been the plan. When the couple and their family moved to Normanby from the Waikato eight years ago, they had decided to grow truffle fungi, said Kylie, who co-owns the business with Dan.
“We had the Greenbridge survey done and they mentioned the crop options, they recommended hazelnut trees and we thought we’d try truffles as well as Taranaki has great climate conditions for them. From there we put in 2000 trees and flax as wind breakers. It took two years to get the land sorted and get the correct level of PH in the soil.”
Kylie said it was around this time she started using lavender herself.
“We had just moved away from family and friends to a new place and I used the lavender to calm myself and our two boys, Jackson and Benjamin down. I like buying from small New Zealand businesses but it was hard to find organic oils as many use spray to kill their weeds. To reduce the toxins in our home, we started growing our own and it all went from there.”
Dan said they discovered lavender was a great companion plant for truffles, so decided to plant some, harvesting the first crops in 2018.
“It takes a couple of years to grow enough that we could harvest it sustainably.”
Mountain Road Estate owners Dan and Kylie Zinsli beside their 40-litre hand-made alembic column copper still. Photo / Alyssa Smith
From there, Dan started distilling using a 40-litre hand-made alembic column copper still, a point of difference for the company, he said.
“We had purchased this from Alembics in Waiheke. As we hand-harvest all our crops for more intention and ritual, the cooper still is perfect for doing multiple smaller distillations.”
The couple added white sage to their business when their youngest child, Evalyn, was born six years ago, Kylie said.
“I used white sage to get my energy levels up. I brought four plants that have propagated well in the land. My intention has always been to offer people the opportunity to raise their vibrations with sustainably grown and ethically sourced, toxin-free products.”
Now, Mountain Road Estate has 500 lavender plants, 100 white sage plants, 240 truffle-inoculated trees and 100 hazelnut trees. She said people can find out more about the business during the Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail which the business is entering for the third time.
“It’s so much fun, we enjoy entering the trail and chatting to people about what we do and the benefits of our products.”
She said they have planned informative and fun events for the trail.
When: Open Friday, November 1, 10am-1pm; Saturday, November 2 and Sunday, November 3, 10am to 4pm; Friday, November 8, 10am-1pm; and Saturday, November 9 and Sunday, November 10, 10am-4pm.
