Rob Fiumara of Lillypilly Wines. UnWINEd Riverina
Riverina Feature Week
Lillypilly, one of the Riverina’s great sweet wine producers, began not as a vineyard or a winery but as a family vegetable growing business, that expanded into a highly successful supermarket.
The Fiumara family’s story in Australia began like so many of Italian origin in the Riverina, when Italian migrants came to Australia seeking a better life following the second world war.
In 1982—his first vintage at home—Rob created a blend of gewürztraminer and semillon that he named Tramillon, which won a gold medal and trophy at the 1983 Sydney Royal Wine Show.
Pasquale and Angela Fiumara brought their green thumbs to the Riverina in the 1950s, and put their roots down between Leeton and Yanco at the southern end of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. They grew vegetables and fruit and began by selling them from a roadside stall. This humble beginning grew into a shop which they named The Golden Apple, and before long it was a large supermarket selling just about everything in the way of food, groceries and household supplies to the rural community. They obtained a liquor licence and began retailing alcohol.
One of Pasquale and Angela’s seven sons, Domenic, known as ‘Mick’, became increasingly interested in wine and developed The Golden Apple’s wine department into something well above the average. It was Mick and my editor at the local newspaper, John Higgins, who started a wine
This Article was originally published on The Real Review
