David Babich

DAVID BABICH LIKES water as much as wine. The head of one of New Zealand’s oldest wineries might be sitting behind his desk poring over the future strategy of his family’s business on weekdays, but his healthy complexion and athletic physique are evidence of his love of kitesurfing and windsurfing on Auckland’s waters. It’s part of his need for speed, which was evident at an early stage.

‘I got a motorbike aged 12 and blasted around the vineyard – it was only two years later I got a helmet for Christmas,’ he says, laughing incredulously. ‘My mum looked at what I was doing and said: “Hmm, you should really have a helmet on.” Today you would have your kid in a suit of armour!’

Growing up on the family’s vineyard in west Auckland in the 1970s in an era before