Tag Archives: Hawkes Bay

Climate Change Already Hurting Māori Communities

Climate Change Already Hurting Māori Communities

Eight months have passed since the powerful Cyclone Gabrielle struck northern New Zealand, killing 11 people and displacing more than 10,000. The storm’s path across the Hawke’s Bay region was indiscriminate: it pummelled low-rent…

Wine Lovers Guide to Hawke’s Bay

Wine Lovers Guide to Hawke’s Bay

Hawke’s Bay is fast becoming one of New Zealand’s top wine destinations. Amanda Barnes from Decanter magazine shares her tips on where to go and what to do. More than a million tourists make their…

Napier an Art Deco Delight of Design and Dining

Napier an Art Deco Delight of Design and Dining

The devastating 1931 earthquake is responsible for Napier being reborn as a town of fine designs and dining. The Australian’s Caroline Gladstone pays a visit to explore the best of the city, and its…

Discover New Zealand’s Wine Regions

Discover New Zealand’s Wine Regions

“New Zealand’s wine regions are at their most spectacular in autumn when the days are long and bathed in late sunshine – it’s an ideal time to savour and enjoy the country’s sauvignon blancs,…

Wine and Fine Lodgings in Hawkes Bay

Wine and Fine Lodgings in Hawkes Bay

“It seems everyone in Hawkes Bay on the east coast of New Zealand needs a winery.  Inspect any wine map of this bountiful region and the place appears alive with wineries, some with attached…

Luxury Lodge Hopping in New Zealand

Luxury Lodge Hopping in New Zealand

“From north to south, New Zealand is an immersion in Maori-dipped expressions, iconic outdoor adventures and exotic Kiwi foodie fare,” writes Shannon Melnyk for The Province. Melnyk mapped out a cross-nation sojourn via…

Top 10 North Island Beach Hotels and Campsites

Top 10 North Island Beach Hotels and Campsites

New Zealand’s North Island “is a rewarding destination for beach lovers” with brilliant blue water and gorgeous stretches of white sand” and offers “many brooding vistas where wild seas meet rocky shores,”

New Zealand’s Food and Drink Make It A Land of Plenty

New Zealand’s Food and Drink Make It A Land of Plenty

With their “Zingy “sauv blanc”, rich flat-white coffee and citrusy hops which now flavours British craft beers, “Kiwis have been making much more impact on our tastes than simply supplying lamb and butter,” as…

New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay Boasts Fine Dining, Wines

New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay Boasts Fine Dining, Wines

“Napier is home to restaurants that rival some of Europe’s finest and to robust reds and complex chardonnays that have put New Zealand on the world’s wine map,” writes Liza Weisstuch, who travelled through…

Cape Kidnappers and Hawkes Bay – A Scenic Wonderland for Foodies and Golfers

Cape Kidnappers and Hawkes Bay – A Scenic Wonderland for Foodies and Golfers

Hawke’s Bay is one of the hidden gems of New Zealand, according to Warren Smith in an article for The Daily Telegraph. Only a couple of days spent in the region with its…

New Zealand Chardonnay Named World-Beater

New Zealand Chardonnay Named World-Beater

The 2012 Vidal Legacy Chardonnay, “a distinctly modern New Zealand chardonnay”, has been awarded the International Trophy for Chardonnay priced over £15 in the annual World Wine Awards released by influential wine publication

Ventouro Tours

Ventouro Tours

Take a look at the beauful video about Ventouro Tours. Ventouro Tours are three to six day luxury cycling tours through New Zealand’s most beautiful riding locations, centred around…

Hawke’s Bay – “A Must-Visit Corner of New Zealand”

Hawke’s Bay – “A Must-Visit Corner of New Zealand”

“If you tell a Kiwi you’re off to (Hawkes Bay), they’ll respond with a knowing smile and a ‘you lucky thing’”, proclaims Will Macpherson in The Guardian. “Rolling, sun-stained hills, the perfect blue of the…

Kauri Cliffs a Place to Holiday like a Billionaire

Kauri Cliffs a Place to Holiday like a Billionaire

Boutique golf resort the Farm at Cape Kidnappers in the Hawkes Bay wine region is one place in the world where it is possible to holiday like a billionaire, Forbes contributor Larry Olmsted says,…

Medal-Winning Weightlifter Heading Minnesota Wine Subsidiary

Medal-Winning Weightlifter Heading Minnesota Wine Subsidiary

Former weightlifter and two-time Commonwealth medal winner New Zealander Nigel Avery, 46, is these days marketing his family’s wine in Minnesota. Last year, Avery assumed the role of CEO for the subsidiary

Take a Dream Drive off the Beaten Track

Take a Dream Drive off the Beaten Track

If you are looking for an alternative, and beautiful, route to travel New Zealand, News.com.au recommends 10 “different dream trips … to get you from landmark to landmark.” “More of a dream trip than any…

He Leaves a Chasm

He Leaves a Chasm

Broadcaster Sir Paul Holmes has died at his home in Hawkes Bay. He was 62. Holmes rose through the ranks of media in New Zealand, and not long into fronting his self-named TVNZ current…

Blessed Love

Blessed Love

Nga Kupu Aroha recorded a journey. It may well have been a saga. The quest started…

Once Was Gangman Styles

Once Was Gangman Styles

As I approach my 60th year (next month) I’m increasingly reflecting on times past and what the hell I intend to do with the time…

Wildcat Spark Plug

Wildcat Spark Plug

Hawkes Bay basketball player Everard Bartlett, 26, is fast establishing a reputation as Perth’s spark plug, emerging as yet another scoring weapon for the Wildcats as it looks to build on an impressive 3-0…

Believe In Oyster Bay

Believe In Oyster Bay

“Hawke’s Bay is producing some of the world’s greatest red wines at the moment,” according to the Leader-Post’s James Romanow. “Enormously fine, well structured wines that will go the distance, they are tremendous in every sense…

Unpretentious Infusions

Unpretentious Infusions

“New Zealand has gone from a foodie backwater to a champion of fresh, unpretentious fare,” CNN reporter Simon Farrell-Green’s writes, suggesting that you “don’t miss out”. “Increasingly, the best places to eat in New…

Five Trophies at Five Nations

Five Trophies at Five Nations

New Zealand has won five trophies at the inaugural Five Nations Wine Challenge, judged in Sydney. Each of the five nations – New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Chile and Argentina – was represented by…

Sustainable style

Sustainable style

Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay is included in a Reuters list of “1 green getaways” compiled by “boutique hotel specialists Mr & Mrs Smith (http://www.mrandmrssmith.com)”. “Combine a 6-acre working sheep and cattle farm with…

Golfer’s dream courses

Golfer’s dream courses

The sister golf courses of Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers are included in a list of Toronto Star travel writer Ian Cruickshank’s “top five places that still need to be played.” “Kauri Cliffs teeters…

Wine About the Bay

Wine About the Bay

There’s more to New Zealand wine than Marlborough, and much of it is within an hour of New Zealand’s major cities jaunted reporter Eric Rosen discovers on a “whirlwind field trip” of the Hawkes…

Big Man in Front

Big Man in Front

Hawke’s Bay prop Clint Newland, 3, has signed a three-month deal with Irish side Leinster. “He’s a big man,” Leinster coach Joe Schmidt said. “He’s 6ft 3ins, 130 kilos, so we think he’s pretty…

Recalling Rousseau

Recalling Rousseau

New Zealand-made documentary This Way of Life is a “gloriously photographed film” — “a story of a Maori family catapulted beyond mere portraiture and into a realm of metaphysics, melancholia and cosmic doubt”, writes…

Way of life applauded

Way of life applauded

Hawkes Bay couple Tom and Barbara Burstyn’s documentary This Way of Life about a Maori family living a subsistence lifestyle has screened at the Berlin Film Festival to full houses and a Jury…

Gimblett Amongst the Best

Gimblett Amongst the Best

“New Zealand has been one of the great success stories of the Noughties,” writes the Telegraph’s Jonathan Ray in a wine trend review of the decade. “It’s a country that I simply adore and…

Taking the mickey

Taking the mickey

The Age finds literal mirth in New Zealand’s “quirky” place names travelling from the North Island town of Waipu, through several of the “whaka-” and on to Shag River, Pigroot and Cape Foulwind. “Also…

Pursuits of Happiness

Pursuits of Happiness

“Beyond the wild, raw landscapes, another New Zealand beckons: one of sophisticated restaurants, silvery olive groves, and the most lush, grape-heavy vineyards this side of Bordeaux” writes Condé Nast writer Chang-rae Lee, who spent…

Deluxe Digs

Deluxe Digs

NZ has added another luxury lodge to its collection this month, with the opening of The Farm at Cape Kidnappers. The Hawkes Bay property is set on a 6,000-acre sheep and cattle farm, and…

A Wine Tourist’s Paradise

A Wine Tourist’s Paradise

Telegraph wine writer Adrian Woodford spent six days in NZ on an intensive wine-tasting tour that encompassed Marlborough, Hawkes Bay and Gisborne. He pronounces NZ the “finest country in the world for a wine tourist” and agrees…

Order of Merit for Lomu and Fagan

Order of Merit for Lomu and Fagan

Two NZ sports greats were made members of the New Zealand Order of Merit at this year’s investiture ceremony. All Black legend Jonah Lomu and sheep shearing champion David Fagan (pictured) both received…

NZ a Top Foodie Destination

NZ a Top Foodie Destination

The past 15 years have seen a seismic shift in NZ gastro-tourism, according to  Telegraph wine columnist Susy Atkins. Since her last visit in 1992, NZ has shrugged off its reputation for “unappetising food, grim…

Te Mata in Dream Opener

Te Mata in Dream Opener

Hawkes Bay’s Te Mata Estate will open next month’s London International Wine and Spirits Fair (LIWSF) with a tasting celebrating 25 years of its flagship Cabernet/Merlot, Coleraine. Te Mata CEO John Buck and winemaker Peter Cowley will…

Right Royal Exposure

Right Royal Exposure

The Queen’s official 80th birthday was marked in suitably sumptuous fashion, with a 4-course lunch at Mansion House for more than 350 guests. The four British chefs charged with overseeing the dinner won the honour after competing…

Pedalling Their Wares

Pedalling Their Wares

NZ features in a New York Times guide to “less-pedalled wine regions to please the palates of cyclists.” Writer Stefani Jackenthal recommends Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago for their respective viticultural and scenic pleasures. Her picks…

From LA to the Bay

From LA to the Bay

From Waimarama Beach to Napier, the Hawke’s Bay region gets a fantastic write up in the LA Times. The writer had organised a family holiday to her mother’s place of birth, in honour of said mother’s…

Dino-buff Wins US Accolade

Dino-buff Wins US Accolade

Dr Joan Wiffen of Havelock North received the esteemed Morris Skinner Award from the US-based Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology at its 64th annual meeting in Denver, Colorado. According to the SVP website, the award is “for…

Worth the Wait

Worth the Wait

Once again, NZ features in the  Guardian‘s “long-haul trips of a lifetime” travel feature. Highly recommended are Lake Rotorua’s On the Point chalet and Big Tom’s Cottage in Hawkes Bay.

Staying Power

Staying Power

Aotearoa has a starring role in wine writer Thom Elkjer’s overview of sauvignon blanc – past and present – for the  SF Chronicle. NZ has been a major player in the grape’s popularity since ” out…

International Exposure for Local Brew

International Exposure for Local Brew

This year’s Oscar nominees sipped on organic coffee supplied by Hawkes Bay company Kea Foods at the pre-awards banquet held at the Beverly Hills Hilton. Kea Foods won the contract ahead of suppliers from all over the…

Beyond the humble bach

Beyond the humble bach

The Guardian explores NZ’s high-end bach culture, with profiles of such luxurious rentals as the Glasshouse on Waiheke Island, Oceania II and Villa Toscana Lodge on the Coromandel Peninsula, and the Hawke’s Bay’s Tom’s…

Designs for Edge Living

Designs for Edge Living

A group of NZ artists are currently on display at the Gallery of Functional Art in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. The show, ‘Straight from New Zealand,’ includes sculpted sheep and dogs by Rodney Brown,…

Bay Alchemy: Red to Gold

Bay Alchemy: Red to Gold

Sacred Hill Wines earned a gold medal for their Helmsman Cabernet Merlot 2000 at the renowned London International Wine Challenge. Chief winemaker Tony Bish sees the award as proof that “Hawke’s Bay, indeed NZ, continues to produce outstanding…

The Woman with the Whistle

The Woman with the Whistle

Kirstin Daly has been made the first woman in Australasia to coach a men’s basketball team at national level. The former NZ women’s captain is to take the helm at Hawke’s Bay. Says club management; “[The…

Architectural Taste

Architectural Taste

Te Mata Estate’s Buck House included in a review of good winery architecture – buildings that, like the wine, reflect and are inspired by the region. Designed by Ian Athfield, the “series of honest, non-fussy buildings” fuses…

Throwing Down the Gimlett

Throwing Down the Gimlett

Terroir – it’s French for “good wine grows here”. Gimlett Gravels in the Hawkes Bay, a patch of gravelly soil that supports 34 wineries, is New Zealand’s first venture into this elite area of wine marketing….

Pask Bask

Pask Bask

Where do you go for the top Bordeaux? Edge Hawkes Bay winery CJ Pask makes the best Bordeaux-style wine in the world, according to the world’s premier wine judging event.