The Darling Wines
The Darling wines are organically crafted and your perfect partner for lunch, dinner or a lazy Sunday breakfast. Elegant in style and possessing unique qualities which make them stand out from the rest.
World travellers and flying winemakers, Chris Darling (winemaker) and Bart Arnst (vine guru) collaborated together to create an organic wine label called Darling Wines. With a wealth of winemaking experience behind them after making gallons of wine for other people, they decided to start making wine for themselves.
They source their organic grapes from vineyards in the Wairau Valley, the Southern Valleys, Rapaura and the Upper Renwick districts. The vineyards are looked after by Bart and the wines are made by Chris. A simple but totally complementary partnership blending 40 years of experience between them into liquid gold. So much so that they were awarded ‘Winery of the Year’ at the New Zealand Organic Wine awards in 2015.
Bart is a founding member of Organic Winegrowers of New Zealand (OWNZ), has been on its executive committee since its inception, has been instrumental in “spreading” the organic message including as programme co-ordinator of the hugely successful bi annual Organic and Biodynamic Wine Conferences.
The Winemaker
Originally from Australia Chris has worked with both large and small wine companies throughout the world including Australia, New Zealand, France, Greece and the Czech Republic. In 2003 he headed to Marlborough New Zealand with a vision of creating great cool climate organic wines.
“People really want to know where their food is coming from and knowing how it’s being produced, and that includes wine. Going forward the organic sector’s getting bigger and bigger and I think because Bart and I have done a lot of pioneering in terms of the organic space, we hope to be able to help other people go the same way.” - Chris Darling