New winery for Villa Maria Estate

The Vidal Cellar Door and wine making is being moved out to a new winery being built next to Te Awa Winery Restaurant under Villa Maria Estate. Photo/File

A new winery is being built next to Te Awa Winery Restaurant, which involves shifting Vidal Estate's cellar door and wine making.

The new facility will incorporate the brands under Villa Maria Estate including Vidal, Esk Valley, Villa Maria and the Te Awa Collection.

Despite the cellar door and wine making from Vidal moving to the winery, it wasn't yet decided whether the restaurant, which had been based in Hastings since 1979, would close.

A Villa Maria spokesperson said there were no current plans to close it but everything was still being confirmed and finalised.

"We're not entirely sure, it's possible we may keep it open or it's possible we may not."

The restaurant was New Zealand's first winery restaurant opened by Anthony Joseph Vidal, a young emigrant from Spain, who established Vidal Estate in 1905.

The spokesperson said the new winery would provide them with a wine making facility featuring more modern machinery.

The winery would include a cellar door where people could buy and taste wines from each of the brands under Villa Maria Estate. This was the first cellar door to do this.

"We are making sure that all of the brands stay individual and have their own identity under this new wine making structure. What makes each of the wines individual and unique will still feature."

The winery will be next to the Te Awa Restaurant, which is undergoing a "minor refresh".

"The restaurant will stay in its current site but we are just expanding it so we can accommodate for larger sized functions."

The Hawke's Bay wines under the Villa Maria umbrella have dominated on the award front with a three-year winning streak in the Hawke's Bay A & P Wine Awards, which unfortunately for them ended last year.

At the Bragato Wine Awards in Blenheim last year two awards were won through their Vidal Vineyard-sourced Reserve Gimblett Gravels Hawke's Bay Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2014.