Wine company branches out
A family-owned Marlborough wine company has snapped up the naming rights for the region’s premier garden festival.
The sponsorship contract garnered interest from several companies, but a chance meeting between neighbours prompted Rapaura Springs Wines to throw its hat in the ring.
Rapaura Springs Wines owner and director John Neylon said he ran into Garden Marlborough committee member Sara Neill a few months ago at the end of their shared driveway.
‘‘We got talking, and I said, ‘is there anything I can do to help?’’ Neylon said.
Landscaping company Nelmac’s three-year contract as festival sponsor was coming to an end, and Neylon was keen to support the event, he said.
‘‘We love Garden Marlborough. And I see the joy that [my wife] Margaret gets out of it every year,’’ Neylon said.
Margaret Neylon started volunteering for the festival from its first year, and gradually took up hosting guests on the garden tours.
Margaret was an avid gardener herself, refusing to hire gardeners to maintain the trees, gardens and rolling lawns at the Neylon family home on O’dwyers Rd, north of Blenheim.
Her husband said their 15-hectare property was ‘‘just a big paddock’’ with three small willow trees when Margaret got hold of it, but was now a ‘‘special little oasis’’ of birds and garden paths.
‘‘It was all Margaret’s vision,’’ Neylon said.
They forged the emblem for Rapaura Springs Wines from a birds-eye view of the stones around freshwater springs at the bottom of the garden.
Co-owner and managing director Ian Wiffin said he and his wife Rosemary were also big fans of the festival.
Rosemary was a landscape architect, who also took great pride in her own garden, and ‘‘dragged’’ Wiffin along to many festival events, he said.
Rapaura Springs Garden Marlborough chairman Tim Crawford said Rapaura Springs Wines was a great match ‘‘for several reasons’’.
‘‘They’re a family-owned Marlborough company, they’ve built up a great reputation internationally, but they’ve flown under the radar a little bit locally, while doing that.
Nelmac would stay on as a major sponsor for the festival this November, along with Marlborough Lines and New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty.
The Stihl Shop Garden Fete, usually held in Seymour Square, would be held at Pollard Park this year, so Armistice Day could be commemorated at the square, Crawford said.