Those who know us won’t be surprised that we sampled wines at a number of places:

• Wanaka — there is a single winery right on Lake Wanaka called “Rippon” that some magazine said was the most beautiful winery in the world. I think no one winery can reasonably claim that … but it sure is gorgeous. Weirdly rushed tasting (30 minutes???, ok but not great wine), but still an enjoyable detour for the Instagram moments.
• The Central Otago region is 45 minutes outside of Queenstown. They make very well-crafted Pinot Noirs (we were especially impressed by Vallee), but they’re not quite our style — very ‘big’ Pinots, a bit more fruit-forward than is our preference. Pretty country.
• We were told to skip Marlborough because it’s mostly huge wineries using robotic picking, but ended up visiting one winery because it was on the way from Kaikoura to Nelson. It was delightful, and we wonder if we should have spent more time there.
• We didn’t really ‘taste’ up in Nelson, but at one dinner we happened to have a Nelson Pinot Noir and it was actually one of our favs of the trip — maybe due to low (as in, 0, because I didn’t know there was such a thing as Nelson Pinot Noir) expectation.
• We did a day trip to Martinborough, 1.5? Hours from Wellington. Beautiful drive over a mountain pass (and Rivendell is on the way, if you’re a Tolkien nut). Much smaller/quieter than some of the other regions, some excellent tastings (still cool climate enough that it’s Pinot/Chardonnay), very friendly, sorta ‘80s Sonoma feel.
• Waiheke is an island maybe 40 minute ferry from Auckland. Very pretty, lovely, and some excellent wines from a warmer region — Kennedy Point in particular makes a Syrah that’s won a bunch of awards, and was quite lovely.
• And yes, we missed Hawke’s Bay. Supposed to be great, just didn’t quite make our itinerary.

Last updated: February 2026