Tasting a region is as important as seeing one, and discovering the flavour of Central Otago is a demanding experience.

Here you will meet foodies that came here before you, and stayed. Enticed and challenged by the intensity of this place, prepared to make flavours sing from the edge of the world for only a favoured few. 

Across the Seasons 

In more gentle climates, where the risks are lower, abundance delivers mild flavours. The average urban palate has a bland memory, conditioned by commercial foods, where everything is averaged. Visiting Central Otago is a shock to every one of your senses, but in the case of taste it’s the most challenging. You’ll build new memories of what food should really taste like.

Across the seasons, it’s like running a high-performance circus – you’re in the ring every day and anything can happen. This is a circus of flavours, where nature, the ringmaster, cracks the whip. 

There’s a quiet confidence and pride in those who produce such quality, rewarded by seeing the passionate endorsement from their loyal customers. It’s less about ambition, more about perfection. Here you work with what you’ve got. Shallow temperamental soils, hoar frosts, scorching heat, scarce water and pure mountain air. It’s a near organic practice of observing nature and going with it.

This discreet community of producers has learnt over time how to navigate the fickleness of these seasons, and the wild cards that nature often deals. Growing anything at the world’s most southern edge is not for the faint hearted. It requires patience and tenacity, honouring nature without embellishment, letting the raw ingredients do the talking.

Here you will meet fiercely independent people, with a reluctant half smile for the newcomer. Once trusted, there is a beaming openness and warmth which will never go away. There is a sense that value is more important than volume. This is a place for wander-lusters seeking genuine moments of connection, with a curiosity to learn something new. This very same quality brought early settlers here, to mine gold and to farm, they were challenged beyond their belief. Romanced by the land and the lifestyle, stay here for more than two seasons and you will never leave.

The heritage café experience here is a no-nonsense one, of unpretentious courtesy and genuine interest in where you are from.

Somehow, it’s a cross over between the lyrics of John Denver and Bob Dylan, about bygone eras from elsewhere, and many other paradises lost. Here the times are not changing, in fact Central Otago is growing in interest, with a hankering factor from a troubled world. Some might say this place has been caught in a time-warp, but as the world spins faster, it’s done itself a favour. Its future is to capture the hearts of those who want to get off through its experiences, flavours and landscapes. This special world of difference is still very much alive.

There’s a fragile balance between old and new. Sensitive development of communities and their endeavours is crucial to maintaining the regions distinctiveness. You have to import the lessons from elsewhere to avoid delinquent development. The world is desperate to slow down in every way and Central Otago has this offer in spades. It requires educated skills and specialist knowledge to nurture these respective futures. In food, hospitality, education, design, agribusiness – learning how to sell less for more is the key learning in securing a future legacy for its children.