Giuseppina De Bortoli

The 'BOSSA' and Original Business Manager of De Bortoli Wines

Giuseppina Bisa grew up in the alpine foothills of the Veneto region, the same part of Italy as Vittorio De Bortoli. They agreed to marry but neither of them could see a future in Italy, where food shortages and lack of opportunity dragged on in the years after the war. When Vittorio decided to migrate to Australia, Giuseppina agreed to follow him once he had found a place for them to live.

It was four years before she was to see him again. During that time she moved to France to work as a maid, saving the money that would pay for her passage to Australia. She travelled the long sea journey on her own, landing in Sydney where she was met by her brothers (eventually – they were late), who then travelled with her to Griffith.

The time she spent in France came in handy for more than just the money. Giuseppina learned to speak French fluently and so when she first moved to Bilbul to marry Vittorio she was able to barter English lessons for French ones with the local schoolteacher. And when it became increasingly apparent that Vittorio’s wine would become their primary source of income, she ordered French winemaking textbooks that she then translated, helping Vittorio improve the quality and the quantity of his wine.

Giuseppina and Vittorio married in 1929 and she was integral to the success of the business from then on. Not only did she manage the books and the business correspondence, but Vittorio constantly came to her for advice in the day to day running of the business. When he did so, he jokingly referred to her as “bossa”.

But Giuseppina was not just a business manager. She also ran the household and had three children Florrie, Eola and Deen. It was a busy life but there was one aspect of all the busy-ness that Giuseppina was grateful for – it allowed her an excuse to escape the cooking, one of her least favourite things to do. Luckily Vittorio loved to cook and supervise what was being served each day. He also created the tradition where they would all – family and farm workers both – sit down to eat lunch together every day.

Giuseppina’s intelligence and hard work were crucial to the solid foundations of the family business. With her, it was able to flourish.

Emeri De Bortoli

Company Chairperson and Matriarch of the De Bortoli Family

“Other than my family, my every waking moment is spent thinking about my garden...I love spending time in the garden, dreaming about how it will look, the suitability of certain plants and planting something that will provide pleasure and sustenance.”

Emeri Cunial grew up in Griffith, the daughter of migrants from the same region in Italy as Vittorio and Giuseppina De Bortoli. She met Deen through his cousin Pierina, who lived next door to Emeri’s family and they married in 1958. After the wedding, a party spanning two days and involving more than 130 guests, a wedding feast cooked by friends and family and truckloads of De Bortoli wine, Emeri and Deen moved to his family home at Bilbul.

Emeri’s determined temperament and love of cooking and gardening were a good match with a family that sat down to talk through (and sometimes argue about) business over lunch every day, eating dishes made with produce pulled from the garden. She was never in any doubt how central the family business would be to her life.

“Deen lived and breathed the winery,” she says. “We started our married life by visiting machinery shops in South Australia, on our honeymoon. That was when I knew how important the business was to him.”

It’s no surprise for her then that her four children – Darren, Leanne, Kevin and Victor – have inherited their dad’s passion for the company.

Over the decades, Emeri acted as a crucial sounding board for Deen while he was alive and now continues to do so with her children as Company Chairperson. She was integral to the creation of Locale, the acclaimed North Italian-inspired restaurant at the Yarra Valley Estate. Emeri’s vision for Locale – skillfully cooked, authentic Italian food cooked with fresh local produce – is still very much in place at the restaurant today.

Emeri’s personal legacy becomes clearer every year, via the gardens she’s created and helped plant (usually accompanied by her beloved dogs) at Bilbul, the Yarra Valley and the Hunter Valley, gardens that are both beautiful and edible.

A tip from Emeri

"I love to use Chardonnay when I’m cooking as it adds flavour and body to many dishes."

Did you know?

Emeri is currently planting a 15-acre memorial garden at Bilbul, dedicated to her late husband Deen.

Leanne De Bortoli

Yarra Valley Estate Manager

“Our unofficial family motto has always been “good wine, good food, good friends” – I think it’s a pretty good formula.”

Leanne De Bortoli’s childhood playground was the winery established by her granddad Vittorio. With the family living opposite the winery, work and play blended seamlessly. One day Leanne and her three brothers would be rollerskating or skateboarding through the winery, weaving around looming wine vats and vast bottling lines, the next they’d be helping out on those same bottling lines, in the winery’s Cellar Door or in the vineyards. At other times they’d be yabbying in one of the irrigation canals surrounding the estate or climbing the fruit and olive trees that their grandparents had planted around the house, “picking oranges and stuffing our faces full of figs”.

“Thinking back on it, it was pretty cool having a winery as a playground when you are a kid,” says Leanne.

Living on a winery is in the blood. Leanne and her winemaker husband Steve Webber now run the De Bortoli winery in the Yarra Valley, living and working on the estate. It’s where they raised two beautiful daughters Sally and Kate who, like their mum and uncles, grew up helping out in the winery and playing amongst the vines.

It’s a busy life in the Yarra Valley. Leanne looks after the winery’s cellar door and renowned restaurant Locale while also helping to promote the winery and the region, tending a thriving veggie patch and, as a self-confessed social media tragic, capturing and posting all the goings on at the estate – from the changing of the seasons in the vineyard to a bumper tomato crop or new dishes on the Locale menu – on her Instagram feed.

Leanne’s a great cook and often treats friends, family and colleagues from the wine industry to delicious meals using recipes handed down to her from her mother and grandmother and produce picked straight from her veggie garden. The meals, usually served on the back terrace of her home and are accompanied by beautiful views over vines and, inevitably, the family dogs.

Leanne and Steve regularly retreat to the Mornington Peninsula where they have a second home and the business of winemaking is replaced by paddle boarding, pilates and yoga.

“Something about the sound and smell of the sea is very relaxing,” says Leanne. “Also, there’s not a vine in sight!”

Of course good food and wine in the company of family and friends is still central even away from the winery. It may be a vine-free break from a busy life, but the family motto still holds sway.

A tip from Leanne 

“Don’t be frightened to try new wine styles – even if you can’t pronounce the names, half the time neither can the winemakers!"

Did you know?

Leanne completed a Wine Marketing degree from Roseworthy Agricultural College, as did Steve Webber, just not at the same time. However through mutual friends from College, they first met.

Kevin De Bortoli

Company Viticulturist at Bilbul Estate

“We’re not only improving wine quality through our management, by the varieties we plant and the crop levels we expect from them, we’re also handing on healthy and productive land to future generations.”

Kevin De Bortoli has always been an “outdoor person”. Growing up on the family winery at Bilbul, among the chickens, guinea fowl and pigeons that his grandfather kept, he decided he would become a farmer. His plan wasn’t necessarily linked with the family business, given that the work that he and his siblings Darren, Leanne and Victor were expected to do around the winery often had nothing to do with the great outdoors.

His first job, when he was around 10, was working on the winery’s bottling line.

“Everything was pretty well manual back then,” he says. “We had to put the bottles onto the line, knock the corks into the bottles and put all the wires on. We were told we had to do it to earn pocket money but I think they did it to keep us out of trouble.”

After leaving high school, Kevin worked at the winery, learning every aspect of it from the vineyard to the crusher and spending a lot of his time working with the maintenance crew. But it was when he began spending more time in the vineyard and decided to study for a Diploma of Viticulture at Charles Sturt University that he discovered his real passion for grape growing.

Kevin now looks after the 300 hectares of vines and 20-plus varieties of grapes at De Bortoli Wines’ Bilbul Estate. His farming practices continue to evolve as he’s become increasingly interested in improving quality and productivity in the vineyard through environmentally sustainable farming practices.

Kevin’s also been practicing and improving his barbeque skills (his steak with grilled radicchio, olive oil and De Bortoli white wine vinegar gets rave reviews), something that he’s been doing more of since he and his wife Jen and their four kids moved to a the new house they built near Bilbul. A feature of the house is a large dining table that seats 26, enough to house the extended family, which they do on many of occasions.

Working in the vineyard, out in the elements, seems to be “a natural fit”, Kevin says. It also seems to be the fulfilment of his 10-year-old self’s dream of being a farmer.

A tip from Kevin

"There are so many styles of wine from sweet to dry that you’ll find one you like if you’re not afraid to try many different styles."

Did you know?

Kevin met his future wife Jennifer whilst she was on a working holiday at the winery. Born and raised in Ontario Canada, Jen has introduced the tradition of the giant Christmas turkey to the family, something she is now duty-bound to do every year.

Victor De Bortoli

Executive Director at De Bortoli Wines

“Internationally there must be a gazillion wines on offer but we overcome this by persistence and just making great wines. I don’t think people overseas are overly different to what consumers in Australia want. They just want a nice bottle of wine that they can sit back and enjoy.”

Victor De Bortoli, the youngest of Deen and Emeri De Bortoli’s four children, had mixed feelings about the family business when he was growing up. On the one hand, the winery and surrounding vineyards were “a massive playground: running around the vineyard on motorbikes, chasing snakes with the bow and arrow, yabbying in the canals, it was just one adventure after another”.

On the other hand there was the expectation that he would also help out at the winery. When he was 12 years old and his brother Darren was first attempting to make what was to become the iconic Noble One, “the old man grabbed us all to spend a day in the vineyard hand-picking those rotten grapes, while my mates were out having fun”.

After leaving school, Victor completed a commerce degree at Australian National University and worked outside of the wine industry for a period before returning to the fold, first as Area Sales Manager for De Bortoli Wines Canberra, then as head of the company’s first offshore branch in London.

The UK posting was both a learning curve and a wake up-call for Victor who, on his return to the winery at Bilbul, discovered the experience had enabled him to “truly understand” the industry and his family’s role in it. After Victor took on the role of head of export operations in 2001, De Bortoli Wines jumped from outside of the top 20 Australian wine exporters to number six in the country. It’s an achievement he describes quite humbly, as “pretty fulfilling”.

Victor’s position in the company has meant many years of extensive travel. Now he has chosen to travel less – with the full support of the family – so as to spend more time with his wife Melissa and their four children. His ideal down time is all about family, friends, food, wine and – like many in his family – gardening.

“I enjoy hanging out in the garden just poking about and growing vegetables. Unfortunately for some plants I really love pruning.”  

A tip from Victor

"Don’t drink red wine warm. The old saying that red wine should be served at room temperature does not mean climate temperature, it actually means cellar temperature out of Europe which around 18 degrees. If you’re at a BBQ and there are reds sitting out on the table, pop them in the esky or fridge for 10 to 20 minutes. You’re not trying to chill them but just taking the heat out of them."

Did you know?

Victor won New South Wales Young Exporter of the Year award in 2001, the year he took over as head of export operations at De Bortoli Wines.