Rising from the ashes

A fire thought to have started with a faulty florescent light, ripped through 100 years of history, leveling the original barrel room and winery and destroying a century of memories, wine and photos.

Vilagrad Winery was established back in 1922 by Ivan Milicich Snr, although he had built the barrel hall years earlier. 

His great grandson, Jacob Nooyen is the current winemaker, and along with his two brothers runs the business, which includes a restaurant and function centre.

While firefighters from throughout Waikato descended onto the site and helped save the restaurant, there was nothing they could do to save the winery or barrel room. And that is what hurts the Nooyen family the most.

“That was devastating,” Jacob says. “All our photos, our wine library, our wine stock library and the totara barrels, where we aged our tawny ports were in there. We can’t do anything about the wines or photos, and replacing those totara barrels is going to be very difficult. I didn’t mind that we lost the kitchen, but that barrel room was something else.”

The heat of the fire is hard to comprehend Nooyen says.

“We had a totara barrel at the front (of the barrel room) and the back of it was completely torched. There are 2000 litres in a totara barrel, it was surprising the fire could get so hot it would burn the barrels completely. We also had 20 200 litre barriques and they are charred or burned. And it was so hot it melted all the glassware and everything including glass in my lab.”

In total the Vilagrad Winery and Function Centre covered an area of 600 square metres. Four hundred of those were destroyed in the blaze. Nooyen says if it hadn’t been for the amazing efforts by the fire fighters, they would have lost even more.

“Many of them had been here before for lunch and so they knew the restaurant area. They were working hard to stop it spreading into there. It worked because the fire turned, but then it went through the winery and onto the storage areas. That was pretty devastating.”

An extension on the winery was saved, as was the restaurant and courtyard area. Even some of the vines planted in the courtyard were saved, which is a small saving grace, Nooyen says, given they are 70- 80 years old.

The 2015 tanks of Chardonnay and Pinot Gris (for the Three Brothers label) have also been saved.

“Even though the tanks were slightly heated, once we got the wines tested and tasted them, they are all safe.”

But while the family has cried buckets of tears since the fire, they have not given up. Nooyen says right from the day of the blaze, they were working towards reopening as soon as possible. With the function centre and restaurant booked out every Friday and Saturday from January (2016) until May, he said they knew they had to get back to business as soon as possible.

So on October 11, the new look and much revised Vilagrad Winery and Function Centre will be once again open to the public. Then on October 31st, a Summervines Fire Festival will be held, with top New Zealand acts such as Tiki Taane and the Black Seeds lined up to perform. Nooyen says the festival acts have offered to perform free of charge or at a reduced rate, to help the family.

“The support we have had since day one has been fantastic,” he said. “The local community, the councils, family friends such as Mills Reef and the Soljans who have helped us with the remaining wine, they have all been brilliant. There have been so many people ringing, emailing and texting offering support. It is very humbling. We even had some local people offer to help with the pruning of the vines, knowing we were a bit busy with everything else. How good is that?”

While the Function Centre will be open in October, Nooyen says the second stage of the rebuild will take a lot longer.

“We will be rebuilding the barrel room, winery and office building and kitchen, but that will probably take over a year.”

He is also hoping that some of the charred remains of the old barrel hall will be able to be incorporated into the new one, as part of the history of the company for future years.

“In 20 or 30 years it will be something that will add to the history of the company and whether we like it or not, it is now part of our heritage.”