“And I’ve still got that entire collection,” he said. “It kind of led into other art.”

For the past 22 years, Indigenous art has been another focus and some results of his work can be seen at Aboriginal Exhibitions Gallery at Rutherglen Estates.

Collections Highlights 2018, which opened earlier this month and can be seen until January 14, is the fourth exhibition since Mr Sip and the winery launched their artistic collaboration in October last year.

“We’ve been doing a show every three months, but it’s a sort of a punishing schedule when you’re rotating your art that often,” the gallery director said with a smile.

Among the artists represented are Kudditji Kngwarreye, Dennis Nelson Tjakamarra, Russell Butler, John Cummins and Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi while artefacts and sculptures such as ceremonial shields, boomerangs, coolamons and wood carvings also feature.

RELATED: 

About 90 pieces make up the present exhibition, still only a fraction of Mr Sip’s total collection.

“The largest showing of the collection was in 2011, which was in Italy,” he said.

Dreamtime Lo Spirito Dell'Arte Aborigena at the Modern Art Museum in Sardinia comprised more than 300 items of contemporary Australian Aboriginal art and culture and has been described as the biggest exhibition of Australian Aboriginal art in an overseas public gallery.

“It ran for six months and the show was that large … it had to be shown twice,” Mr Sip said.

“They put the first half up, it ran for three months, pulled that down and then the next half went up for the remaining three months.”

Many of the works now displayed at Rutherglen were earlier seen in Italy.

“This one is a mixed show and it’s gone down very well,” the director said.

After first moving his collection to Rutherglen (“It was a bit of serendipity, really”), Mr Sip and his wife Nikkii Baker, a clinical nutritionist, themselves relocated from Melbourne four months ago to Wangaratta.