When art dealer Gene Walker married Gisborne-based clothes designer and café owner Chelsea Thorpe, little did he know that soon he’d be in business making wine with her dad. The Family Company are now one of Gisborne’s most exciting producers, crafting viognier (vee-yon-yay) perfumed with apricots, cardamom, jasmine and orange oil and showing ripe peach and flinty, smoky notes on the finish.
Sip with: classic roast pork and salty crackling.