North Island
Hawke's Bay
Wine country by the Pacific, with lodges on the cliffs above it.
North Island · Wine lovers · Food enthusiasts · Couples
Hawke's Bay is where New Zealand's wine and food culture is at its most confident. The bay enjoys more sunshine hours than almost anywhere in the country, and that light, warm, clear, drawn out, is what gives the region its particular quality. The Heretaunga Plains produce world-class merlot, syrah, and chardonnay from estates like Craggy Range, Church Road, and Black Barn. Private cellar door experiences here are as refined as anything in Napa or Margaret River.
Napier was rebuilt almost entirely in Art Deco after the earthquake of 1931, and its streets have a coherence few cities anywhere can match. But the region's most singular experience is The Farm at Cape Kidnappers. Set on 6,000 rolling acres above Pacific cliffs that host the world's largest mainland gannet colony, it is one of the great lodges not just of New Zealand but of the Southern Hemisphere. Dinner on the terrace as the gannets wheel overhead and the last light leaves Hawke Bay is the kind of moment that recalibrates everything.
Among its moments
- The Farm at Cape Kidnappers, cliff-edge lodge dining
- Gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers
- Craggy Range, Black Barn and Clearview private wine tastings
- Art Deco Napier walking tour
- Te Mata Peak, panoramic valley views
- Havelock North, artisan food and produce market
Hawke's Bay in photographs
Journeys through Hawke's Bay
Reading on Hawke's Bay
The whole journal- Hawke's Bay: One of the Great Wine Capitals of the World
Food & Wine, 5 min read
- Kauri Cliffs, Cape Kidnappers, Matakauri: how the three compare
Lodge Insider, 7 min read
Near here
All thirty regions, on the map