If you wanted to profile a winemaker, your first stop was Babich road

In the 1970s, winemaking was still a niche industry in New Zealand.

But the Babich name was already well known. That’s why, when the National Film Unit wanted to film a piece on immigrant winemakers, Josip Babich was the obvious first choice. And while it’s impossible to say for sure, shooting the documentary might just have been the thing that planted the love of winemaking in the heart of it’s director – a young man by the name of Sam Neill.