Mr Gryllis will pull the cork on the big bottle of plonk on Tuesday when he celebrates the 60th anniversary of his immigration to Australia.

This is not any six-litre bottle of cab sauv - it was part of 1997 vintage grown on a property bearing the name of one of Australia's great prime ministers, Sir Robert Menzies.

It was under Mr Menzies' tenure Mr Gryllis followed brother Theo from the Greek Island of Patmos to Australia’s shores, with the mandate he work for the government for two years before deciding if he wished to stay here.

"Otherwise they would send us back," Mr Gryllis added.

That was back in 1956 when the Australian government encouraged immigrants to work as unskilled labourers in Australia.

After arriving in Melbourne, Mr Gryllis headed north to Queensland were he spent his first five months in Australia working on a tobacco farm.

After five months he reunited with Theo, who was working in Orange.

That led to employment making washing machines at Email for 11 months before Mr Gryllis moved to Sydney to work in the Piccadilly arcade milk bar in Pitt Street.

He may not have realised it at the time but that was the forerunner to a career in hospitality, which began when he and Theo bought Jim’s Cafe in the top block of Summer Street in Orange.

The pair were then joined by brother Chris in a partnership running the Tourist Hotel (now the Hotel Orange), a three-year stint Mr Gryllis remembers fondly.

Ownership of a bread shop opposite the post office and then a restaurant upstairs in Summer Street eventually led to Mr Gryllis purchasing the venue he is best known for, the Patmos Restaurant in Lords Place.

"That was in September ’82, we bought Alcorns Star Ballroom and had it for 20 years," he said.

"We did a lot of weddings, I think I did about 800 weddings."