Long time friend Alex Corban has died on Sunday 7th September aged 89. His family established one of the first wineries in West Auckland. His grandfather Assid Abraham Corban arrived in New Zealand from the Lebanon in1892. He was a member of the modern pioneering families of New Zealand winemaking. He worked tirelessly to bring the fragmented NZ wine industry together as a political voice. When the family business sold to a major corporation he became the first chairman of the New Zealand Wine Institute which is now New Zealand Winegrowers. I knew him as a very “determined” man and see he has been described as working with “patience and persistence” !!
In 1978 he was awarded an OBE and in 1990 the New Zealand Medal.