Our IGCSE Economics class spent a very interesting few hours at Villa Maria this week. Led by a very informative guide, we learned about the lengths the company have gone to to be eco-friendly (their bottles, produced by a dedicated company a mere five kilometers from the plant, are made completely of recycled glass) and how the Villa’s wine fermentation tanks’ cooling technology are designed to conserve energy by using generated heat on other systems in the plant. We also learned that Villa Maria led New Zealand in the mass adoption of the ‘twist-style’ cap, as opposed to the ancient cork that often failed to properly seal the bottles. Next, we traveled through to the bottling area, where we were amazed by the massive machines used to bottle, label, seal and analyse the wine bottles. Particularly interesting was the information we gained about the company’s acquisition of other New Zealand wineries, and how they source some of their premium wine grapes from vineyards nationwide. In addition to this we saw how they approach their multinational capabilities – such as sales in China, the UK, Australia and the US. This was particularly pertinent to our current topic in Economics where we have been learning about Multinationals and their effects on the economies of their host countries. All in all a very enjoyable and productive field trip!