AH- CHAN -- JOE - AUCKLAND -NZ -- 1925 --- 1959

In 1929, with assistance from Andrew Sinkovich, a wine-maker from Henderson, Ah Chan produced his first batch of 1,000 gallons of wine. He was reputedly the first Chinese wine-maker in the southern hemisphere.

Ah Chan made trial plantings of several grape varieties such as Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon for table wines. However, most consumers preferred port and sherry, and the latter, made with the hybrid Albany Surprise grape, became one of his main lines. In another experiment he blended essence extracted from clary, a herb grown by A. M. Isdale, to give his wine a liqueur-like flavour. As Joe was often away, Kue Sum played a leading role in the vineyard, supervising the cultivation, harvesting and packing of the grapes.

In 1928 Ah Chan initiated one of the first passenger road services from Thames to Auckland. He purchased an American Wolverine car and each Thursday carried passengers, and his produce, to Auckland. An innovative and resourceful businessman, Ah Chan was probably the first Chinese in New Zealand to use motorised rotary hoe cultivators and tractor-drawn ploughs. In 1933 he designed and built a large wooden reel to lay specially made six-foot rolls of wire-netting, which were used to protect the grapevines from bird damage. He also designed and installed a large water tank and an automatic pressurised piping system for spraying and irrigation.

In 1950 Ah Chan sold the vineyard to a distant kinsman, Stanley Young Chan, who changed its name to Totara Vineyards SYC. Ah Chan had hoped to return to China with his family, but the communist victory in 1949 forced him to change his plans. The family settled in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, on a five-acre property with six glasshouses, where Joe grew tomatoes for the Auckland markets.

Joe Ah Chan had been a founding member of the Chinese nationalist party, the Kuomintang, in New Zealand and served as chairman of its Waikato branch. He helped to raise funds for the Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen and was one of three New Zealanders awarded a medal by Sun. Later, he was a strong supporter of Chiang Kai-shek and made large donations to assist China's war effort against Japan. During the 1930s, disturbed by the poverty of the depression, Ah Chan became a member of the New Zealand Labour Party.

A short, stocky man, Joe Ah Chan spent much of his spare time reading Chinese classical works and Chinese newspapers. He also loved to listen to his favourite Cantonese opera records on his old gramophone. He died in Auckland on 14 December 1959, survived by Kue Sum and their three children; he was buried at Waikumete cemetery.