LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL ITINERARY INFORMATION
Itinerary: Fine Wines
If your palate has a fine appreciation of fermented grape juice, or you want to make an impressive splash in a spittoon with connoisseur friends back home, then consider an intoxicating tour of some of NZ's 400-odd vineyards.
On the North Island there's accomplished viticulture west of Auckland, where speciality fruit wines can be sampled, and east of the city on Waiheke Island, where numerous wineries compete for vintage accolades. The fertile plains around Gisborne are devoted to chardonnay, while Hawkes Bay also loves its chardy but squeezes out some premier cabernet sauvignon and merlot too. Martinborough in the Wairarapa region creates outstanding pinot noir flavours.
The country's most notable bouquet-sniffing realm is on the South Island in Marlborough, where crisp sauvignon blanc and fruity riesling is guzzled with wild yet refined abandon. Also barrelling down the road to commercial success are the wineries of Central Otago, specialising in fine pinots. The Waipara Valley is a relatively new grape-growing region now producing over 90,000 cases of wine annually.
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