Hawkes Bay continues to produce some of the country's loveliest wine. Blessed with a generous warm climate ideal for ripening grapes and versatile, sympathetic terra firma, it's capable of beautiful reds and a slew of rich mineral-infused whites.
Experience and age count for a lot and the region boasts some of our oldest wineries. There's history in those hills and valleys and a decent number of wine producers have been doing the business for more years than they choose to remember.
Some of my own fondest wine experiences have been tasting wines from the Hawkes Bay - Bordeaux-style blends with character and sheer class, syrah with head-spinning qualities and oomph, mystical merlots and lower-case varietals like tempranillo and zinfandel that are gaining traction. The chardonnays can offer strength with subtlety and as much or as little oak to suit your palate. Some of New Zealand's smartest gewurztraminer, pinot gris and sauvignon blanc are all found here.
One of the first vineyards I stumbled across many years ago was Dr Alan Limmer's Stonecroft. It didn't go terribly well, it was a statutory holiday and I wandered on to his property to buy some wine. He thought I was a bureaucrat from the Ministry of Whatever, trying to catch him out for making a sale on a day he wasn't allowed to trade.
Years later we laugh about it but at the time the good doctor was very grumpy.
