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Chard Farm’s Pinot Noir tasting. |
Guest post by Petra and Shaun
Snow-capped craggy mountains, cold steel-blue lakes, and impatient
rushing rivers are typical landscapes you would expect in New Zealand’s Central
Otago region, home to the tourism hot spot of Queenstown.
Fortunately for wine-loving travellers, Central Otago is world renowned
for its Pinot Noir, and also produces some great aromatic white wines. The hot
summers and cold winters combined with minimal rainfall and free draining soils
make for excellent grape growing conditions.
If you visit in summer, you’ll likely be treated to hot, dry, sunny
days, with a scorched landscape all around. In winter, snow often covers the
ground and the cellar doors with restaurants offer tables next to roaring
fireplaces. Visiting the region in any season is a delight, and it’s great that
the cellar doors (otherwise known as wine tasting rooms to US folks) are open
year-round.
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View over Central Otago’s mountains near
Queenstown. |
As New Zealanders, we have been lucky enough to visit Queenstown and the
surrounding region numerous times. Every time we go there we end up taking
numerous bottles on the plane back home, and so do the majority of the
passengers.
So here is a list of our five favourite cellar doors within one hour’s
drive of Queenstown. You’ll need a rental car to visit all these places, as
public transport just doesn’t cut it. There are wine tours available with a
pre-determined itinerary but we recommend going at your own pace and enjoying
the journey (but just remember to allocate a sober driver).
Chard Farm (25 minutes from
Queenstown)
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Rules on the door at Chard Farm.
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Chard Farm Winery is our all-time favourite. We love all of their wines,
but particularly their outstanding Pinot Noir – the Viper, Tiger, and Mata-Au
varieties are all superb. Their aromatics are also divine, in particular the
Gewürztraminer. The people running the cellar door are so friendly, you really
feel like you’ve stepped into someone’s home. Chard Farm is located at the end
of a rather hairy road along the Kawarau Gorge – it’s one car wide and has a
cliff on one side and a sheer drop to the river below on the other side. More
than one car has tumbled off the road, so be careful! But when you get there,
it’s totally worth it.
Amisfield Winery (15 minutes from
Queenstown)
The cellar door and restaurant at Amisfield is beautiful – think huge
old wooden beams in a church-like building, a roaring fireplace in the winter,
and of course amazing wine. The Pinot Noir is fantastic and we also love their
Riesling. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner, and we recommend trying the
excellent Trust the Chef menu – you get five courses to share, made from local,
seasonal ingredients. You can also get the meal paired with different wines if
you so desire.
Mt Difficulty Wines (50 minutes
from Queenstown)
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A wintry view from Mt Difficulty Wines cellar
door and restaurant. |
Mt Difficulty is located in the Bannockburn region of Central Otago,
near the town of Cromwell. The view from their restaurant and cellar door is
stunning, as it looks towards mountains and over the vineyards and stone fruit orchards
on the flats around Cromwell. It’s well worth stopping in here for lunch and a
tasting – you won’t be disappointed. Their Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris varieties
are superb.
Gibbston Valley Wines (25 minutes
from Queenstown)
Gibbston Valley Winery is located near Chard Farm and also alongside the
Kawarau River. Their Pinot Noir is tasty, and the cheese on offer at the shop
on location is delicious (and goes down very well with their wine). They also
offer tours of their vineyard and wine cave, which is dug into the hill behind
the winery. It’s fun seeing all their barrels with the current vintage aging
away, and doing a tasting inside the cave. A word to the wise – this is a stop
for tour buses, so if you’re wanting a busy winery experience this is a great
place to go.
Northburn Station (50 minutes
from Queenstown)
Northburn Station’s winery is part of a high country sheep station on
the eastern shores of Lake Dunstan, near Cromwell. The cellar door is housed in
a beautiful stone building with pretty views over a pond to the mountains
beyond. Northburn’s Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc are a hit, and they also
offer delicious platters full of local goodies (cheese, meats, olives, terrine,
and more). Delicious!
The cellar doors will ship across the world so those amazing wines don’t
have to remain only a memory once you return home. With its awe-inspiring
scenery and fantastic wine, as well as plenty of other activities to keep you
busy, a stay in the Central Otago region is a must for any visitor to New
Zealand.
Petra and Shaun are two mid-20s New
Zealanders who currently reside in Vancouver, Canada, but their hearts are in
Southeast Asia and they would love to live there some day. On their travels
they aim to understand and embrace different cultures, histories, customs,
foods, and landscapes. Their blog The Global Couple is a collection of their
travel tales and photography, but also contains travel tips, road trip
itineraries for New Zealand and the US, and city guides. Follow them on Instagram and Facebook.