The Winemaker

Biography of New Zealand's most awarded wine-industry leader. Over the last 15 years, the New Zealand industry has increasingly globalised, as international corporates take a dominant role in our wine production. Villa Maria has always fiercely guarded its independence as New Zealand's largest privately-owned wine company, an independence that can be tracked back to the day in 1961 when a young George Fistonich told his Croatian-immigrant father that he wanted to give up building and take over t