Central Otago grows wine at altitude, on schist and clay that the majority winemakers elsewhere wouldn’t threat. The area splits into six sub-regions, every with its personal character, and no single day can do justice to all of them. A full-day Central Otago wine tour focuses on three: Gibbston, Cromwell, and Bannockburn.
Alongside the way in which, you stroll via New Zealand‘s largest underground wine cave, sit right down to a five-course lunch cooked in retired oak barrels, and, if the day permits, spend time in Outdated Cromwell or Arrowtown. Friends usually inform us they arrive away feeling they’ve spent the day contained in the area itself, down by its rivers and in its kitchens.
On this information:
Three Sub-Areas, One Day
Style a Gibbston Pinot Noir and a Bannockburn Pinot Noir an hour aside, and the distinction is difficult to overlook. Every of Central Otago’s six sub-regions solutions to its personal soil and its personal climate.
Gibbston
Gibbston sits increased and cooler than the others, folded into the gorge alongside the Kawarau River. It’s identified for structured Pinot Noir with actual spine.
The Cromwell Basin
The Cromwell Basin runs hotter. Lake Dunstan moderates the temperature right here, and the fruit ripens in a different way because of this.
Bannockburn
Throughout the basin, Bannockburn holds a few of the area’s oldest vines on schist-heavy slopes. Most visitors discover the minerality in these wines throughout the first sip, usually earlier than we’ve defined the place it comes from.
We go to all three sub-regions on each tour. Tasting Central Otago correctly means tasting the variations between them facet by facet, in the identical afternoon, whereas every glass continues to be contemporary in your reminiscence, in order that’s how we constructed the route.
4 Vineyards Throughout Three of Central Otago’s Wine Sub-Areas
Style your method via Gibbston, Bannockburn, and Cromwell in a single day, with cool-climate wines from 4 boutique vineyards. You’ll see how a lot the panorama and the glass change from one sub-region to the following. Lunch is a platter of native produce with a flight of wines at Carrick Vineyard & Restaurant. If the climate permits, you’ll additionally stroll via the historic settlement of Outdated Cromwell. The entire method, your information shares tales in regards to the area’s pioneers and the way its wine nation took form.
What’s included
Return lodge transfers
Tastings at 4 premium vineyards in Gibbston, Bannockburn, and Cromwell
Platter-style lunch with a wine flight at Carrick Vineyard & Restaurant
A stroll via Outdated Cromwell (climate allowing)
Full commentary on the area’s sights, wine, and historical past
Examine availability and guide your Central Otago wine tour →
Contained in the Gibbston Valley Wine Cave
There’s a selected hush to tasting wine underground, with the barrels shut and the daylight gone.
The Gibbston Valley wine cave is the most important underground wine collapse New Zealand, and one of many day’s tastings occurs inside it. A information leads you thru, explains how the cave is used, and pours as you go. The stroll and tasting take 30 to 40 minutes. It’s a really totally different method to style wine than standing at a cellar door counter.
Age Restriction for the Cave
Anybody underneath 17 isn’t permitted contained in the cave. On shared excursions, youngsters keep on the Gibbston Valley Vineyard cellar door with the information whereas mother and father or caregivers undergo. On personal excursions, we will prepare a cellar door tasting as an alternative, or swap Gibbston Valley Vineyard for one more winery completely if that fits your group higher.
The Stoaker Room: Lunch Cooked in Wine Barrels
Lunch occurs at The Stoaker Room in Cromwell, and it’s constructed round a genuinely uncommon approach: the meats are cooked in retired oak wine barrels. It’s 5 dishes, 5 matched wines, and the pairing is deliberate quite than ornamental. Throughout the yr, the plates can embrace venison, goat, duck, pork, and salmon, and each lands subsequent to a wine chosen particularly for it.
What makes this stand out isn’t simply the barrel cooking, although that alone is well worth the seat. It’s that the lunch is included. Numerous wine tour operators within the space deal with meals as an non-obligatory further you guide individually, if you happen to guide it in any respect. We construct it into the day from the beginning, as a result of a five-course lunch matched wine by wine is the place a number of visitors do their actual studying about what they really like.
That studying exhibits up in unusual methods typically. We had a visitor just lately who opened the day insisting he didn’t like white wine, full cease. By the tip of lunch he’d modified his thoughts completely and was already asking about reserving a personal tour to attempt extra whites. That’s not an uncommon final result. Wines style totally different subsequent to meals than they do standing alone at a tasting bench, and Central Otago’s cooler-climate whites specifically shock individuals who suppose they know their very own palate.
Outdated Cromwell and Arrowtown
In autumn, the bushes alongside Arrowtown’s foremost avenue flip orange and yellow, and the van goes quiet for a minute.
Time allowing, the day features a cease in Outdated Cromwell or Arrowtown. Each carry actual pioneering and gold mining historical past. Arrowtown’s gold rush previous contains its outdated Chinese language Settlement, and our guides are pleased to stroll you thru that story if there’s time.
On the drive between stops, we level out landmarks most self-guided guests miss completely, the Edith Cavell Bridge and Queenstown Hill amongst them, together with stretches of the Kawarau River.
How the Seasons Change the Drive
Spring brings younger lambs and deer within the fields between vineyards, and the primary blossom on the bushes. Summer time usually means lunch or a tasting outdoor, glass in hand, searching on the nation. In winter, fires are going on the cellar doorways, and a quiet settles over the entire area as soon as the crowds skinny out. Autumn belongs to Arrowtown.
The Guides
Someplace between the second and third winery, the tales begin.
Our senior guides have constructed actual information of the area, and lots of of them have lived right here for 30 years or extra. Earlier than this work, some drove jet boats. Others taught paragliding or panned for gold. That background comes via within the tales they inform between stops, and it’s an enormous a part of why a shared group of strangers so usually ends the day feeling like individuals who selected to spend the afternoon collectively.
Sensible Data
Getting There
You’re picked up out of your lodging in a Mercedes-Benz minivan, so there’s no driving and no logistics to type out beforehand. The tour runs throughout the total day, shifting between the three sub-regions, the cave tasting, lunch at The Stoaker Room, and no matter sightseeing time permits in Outdated Cromwell or Arrowtown.
Youngsters on Tour
Youngsters aged 6 to 17 are welcome on shared excursions, however they will’t be part of the cave tour at Gibbston Valley Vineyard. They keep on the cellar door with a information whereas mother and father or caregivers undergo the cave, which takes 30 to 40 minutes. Personal excursions can accommodate youngsters of any age, and we will prepare a cellar door tasting or substitute a distinct winery if you happen to’d quite skip the cave restriction altogether.
Greatest Time to Go to
The tour runs year-round, and every season modifications the texture of the day quite than the substance of it. Summer time favors outside seating and lengthy views. Winter means fires and quiet cellar doorways. Spring brings lambs and blossoms alongside the drive, and autumn turns Arrowtown into its best-looking self.
What to Count on
Count on a full day, 5 programs at lunch matched with 5 wines, tastings throughout three sub-regions, and a information who is aware of the realm nicely past the winery gates. Meals is included within the tour worth quite than bought as an additional, which isn’t common follow amongst operators right here.
Incessantly Requested Questions
Is Central Otago wine largely Pinot Noir?
Pinot Noir is the area’s best-known selection, however the cool local weather additionally produces robust Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay. Tasting throughout Gibbston, Cromwell, and Bannockburn in someday exhibits how a lot variation exists even inside a single grape.
Can I do that tour if I don’t know a lot about wine?
Sure, and it’s truly a typical place to begin for visitors. The information explains what you’re tasting with out assuming prior information, and the meals pairings at lunch are inclined to make taste variations click on in a method {that a} straight tasting typically doesn’t.
How lengthy does the Gibbston Valley cave tour take?
The guided cave tour and tasting sometimes run 30 to 40 minutes. It’s one cease throughout the full-day tour, not a separate reserving.
Lunch at The Stoaker Room, all 5 programs and 5 matched wines, is included within the tour. That’s a deliberate selection on our half, since a number of operators within the area worth meals individually.
What occurs if we run out of time for Arrowtown?
Arrowtown and Outdated Cromwell are visited time allowing, for the reason that precedence is the wine tastings and lunch. If the day runs lengthy, your information will let you recognize which cease suits and regulate accordingly.
Is that this tour appropriate for a gaggle that doesn’t know one another nicely?
It really works nicely for teams of strangers who arrive as visitors and sometimes depart as one thing nearer to associates. Shared tastings, an extended lunch, and a information who tells good tales have a tendency to do this naturally over the course of a day.
