Duncan Smith is an English-born plant pathologist, photographer, and storyteller whose life took him from the grey boardrooms of corporate life to the sunlit hills of rural New Zealand. After a chance meeting in the Scottish Highlands, he and his wife, Judy, a very talented horticulturist and award-winning cider-maker, followed a shared dream that brought them to the Waimata Valley near Gisborne.

There, on a neglected little farm with more challenges than comforts, they built Tiritiri Estate: one of New Zealand’s smallest and most determined, award-winning organic vineyards.

Their memoir, The Tiny Vineyard That Defied the Odds, tells the story of that remarkable transformation with warmth, gentle humour, and heartfelt honesty.