Queenstown is an adventure junkie’s dream. The place has every activity bound to get you outside and shoot you up with an adrenaline high. I mean, it’s the home of bungee-jumping for Pete’s sake – and they are damn proud of it. On a lake surrounded by mountains, Queenstown is full of both winter sports on the slopes and summer sports on the lake. They have a great nightlife, some of the best found on the South Island, a thriving art culture and — oh yea — great wine. This place is at the edge of the world and they live like it.

We only watched…

We happened to be there over St. Patty’s weekend. The town lit up all sorts of green, with beer drinking, wannabe Irish Kiwis. It was hilarious. And so much fun.

Ok but on to the wine! We ventured out of the beautiful scenic town into what looked like a desert landscape. The only greenery here was the vines. Nothing like we had ever seen before, our curiosity spiked. (How can you grow Pinot Noir in a desert??) Well, they can, and they do it VERY well!

Being the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants road trippers we were, it was slightly stupid of us to not look up some of the more predominant wineries such as Felton Road, Craggy Range and so on to make appointments, so we unfortunately missed out on these, but did make it to Mt. Difficulty, one of the more famous wineries in the area. Highly recommended, and often we can find these wines in the States. They have a beautiful tasting room, and restaurant on the property overlooking Central Otago. We found their wines pleasant, but needing a little more time in the bottle to really show some of the great potential harmony. With some of the oldest vineyards in the region, these wines are sure to develop for many years!

We stumbled upon a wonderful experience at Carrick. The biodynamic sign out front reeled us into a welcoming tasting room. Our gracious and knowledgeable host showed us around the grounds, us the plans for this relatively new winery and we delved into farming techniques. As an organic and biodynamic practicing winery, they use no synthetic pesticides in the vineyard and carry the mentality on into the cellar with limited intervention, including wild yeast fermentations. Outstanding wines, and some of the more delicate in the region.

We headed back to our hotel, enjoyed a bottle Giesen and reflected on tasting notes and the region. We found a lovely sushi restaurant downtown where we scored a bottle of Two Paddocks Picnic Riesling, which fit great to our meal!

After two days in Central Otago, it was time to move on, up the west coast this time. It looked like there were lots of beaches and we were excited to get some sun!

Don’t cha? These were everywhere, had to include it