Touring the Central Otago and Queenstown Wine region

Discovering nice Pinot Noir is without doubt one of the Holy Grail’s for wine followers. Central Otago is a wine area that

has confirmed it self able to producing such wines. Excursions within the wine area could be completed by self driving, armed with the superb native wine map. Alternatively be part of an area professional on considered one of Appellation Central’s Queenstown Wine Excursions and uncover among the lesser identified gems.

Central Otago Location

Central Otago is positioned within the southern half of the South Island of New Zealand. The forty fifth parallel south runs immediately by means of the center of the area. It’s a stunningly stunning area with rugged, snow capped mountains, clear blue rivers, deep gorges and picturesque alpine lakes. The closest main cities are Queenstown, Wanaka, Crowell and Alexandra.

Grape Varieties

Industrial winery growth started in 1981; an essential step within the growth of the Central Otago wine area was the identification of classical French and German grape varieties that suited the ‘terroir’ and local weather. The principal varieties are Pinot Noir, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay, all producing wonderful wines.

Geography of the South Island, Queenstown and Central Otago

The South Island panorama is dominated by the Southern Alps Mountains which run from Fiordland within the South-West to Marlborough within the far North-East. These rugged mountains have a major affect on South Island climate patterns with distinctly wetter situations within the west and considerably drier and warmer within the east. The vineyards lie within the semi-arid valley flooring of Central Otago. The close by resort cities of Wanaka and Queenstown lie on the shores of two of New Zealand’s largest and deepest glacial carved lakes with Lake Wakatipu the third deepest in New Zealand at 380m deep. The areas soils are usually a mixture of schist gravels and sandy loam, comparatively infertile and free draining. The vast majority of the prime winery websites are positioned on north dealing with, sunny slopes. Many are additionally near rivers or lakes, offsetting among the excessive frost dangers in spring and autumn time.

These situations lend themselves to producing world-class wines in what’s the southern-most wine area on the earth. This essential New Zealand wine area bears many climate and climatic similarities to different nice cool-climate wine areas akin to Burgundy, Alsace, the Mosel and Oregon.

Entry and actions

Queenstown is the closest worldwide gateway to the decrease South Island, Central Otago, Wanaka, Fiordland and Milford Sound. Queenstown can be well-known for a myriad of journey actions from bungy leaping, mountain biking, jetboating to sky diving. What’s much less identified is the huge choice of non-adventure Queenstown actions and points of interest which might be accessible. We extremely advocate taking time to plan Queenstown holidays to not solely embody journey choices and a wine tour however to additionally think about permitting time to:

• Get pleasure from one of many nice walks within the area

• Take a spectacular helicopter flight

• Strive your hand at fly fishing

• Picnic on the shores of Lake Wakatipu

• Play golf at one of many six gorgeous golf programs

• Ski in winter