Waitaki – a progress report

For non-New-Zealanders, New Zealand place names can be very confusing. All those Ts, Ks and Ws. The other day at the excellent Dirty Dozen tasting I came across a Pinot Noir from a brand new wine region within Hawke's Bay called Waipawa, which whoever had put together the tasting booklet automatically took to be the South Island's answer to Burgundy – Waipara.

I know that when in 2005 I first heard of the emerging wine region of North Otago, Waitaki, it took me a couple of years at least to get all the consonants in the right place. The great...