Villa Maria Estate is one of New Zealand's largest and most celebrated family owned wineries. Owned by George Fistonich’s and based in Auckland, Villa Maria Estate boasts two 'state of the art' wineries. The largest is Villa Maria’s new Auckland winery and Vineyard Park, which was officially opened in February 2005. It replaced Villa Maria’s original winery, built in 1969 on the site of its founder's home in Mangere. The new Auckland winery crushes grapes harvested from the Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay regions. A second ‘state of the art’ winery located in Marlborough, processes Villa Maria’s Marlborough harvest. Villa Maria Estate has been New Zealand's leading wine award winner, both nationally and internationally, since the early 1980's. Some of Villa Maria’s many recent achievements include being named amongst the world’s 50 great wine producers by American magazine Wine Spectator and being named New Zealand Wine Company of the Year at Australia’s Winestate Wine Awards for the sixth time in seven years