Central Otago, where slow is a virtue —
An unparalleled celebration of the heart.
When you're tired of skiing, walking, conferencing or just fun-seeking you may just want to experience something completely different. Take your taste buds on an outing through the adjoining mountains to Central Otago. Here within a one-hour road trip you will discover some of the world's finest wines and learn how they begin their journey to many of the most discerning palates on the globe. This mainly organic and completely natural environment spells patience with a capital P, where everything slows down including nature. Where the smells and flavours of the earth have no commercial interruption. Where slow is a virtue in producing a great wine and where the lessons of nature reconnect us.The wine of life is discovering the elegance of raw nature and what it can do to please you.
Go through the gorge to Central Otago and slow down, discover what really matters in your busy world. There is something raw and monstrous about the uncompromising remarkable peaks, the cavernous gorges and hidden valleys, which will transport you there. One of the worlds great drives where you won't want to exceed the speed limit. Coming to one's senses in Central Otago is a physical thing. Its embossed harsh landscapes, long hills and rosy-cheeked locals have time for you.
There is a rugged individualism bred from the backdrop, a social independence where shared picnicking moments are more important than your money. So close, yet so different to the Queenstown lakes area, it offers a strong counterpoint. It takes a concentrated attack on the senses, begging the question as to what life is really about. Nature here has its own sophistication. However perfect the photograph, you have to smell it, breathe it and taste all of its seasonal bounty. Such sensuous experiences will stay with you indelibly for the rest of your days. This place of difference is just that, genuinely delivering difference in all things. A place of extremes where the torturous nature produces the finest flavours, the finest wool fleeces; where nature seems to want to be left alone to do its thing and when it does, it's truly remarkable.
Let Central Otago catch you with its quiet, let it put you in a limbo, created by the presence or lack of someone else. For it is this limbo, that in-between place from a troubled world, which Central has to offer, it's truly time out. You cannot add or take away what Central Otago will be to you; nature's affect will overpower your significance. This is a place that will love you for your patience and how hard you work to understand it. It will reveal itself in subtle unexpected ways. You can have its delicious cherries but not its winter sleeping orchards which froze your flavour in. You can bundle up the skies of summer in your camera but their freshness and the light they bring to your skin can only be felt. You're only passport through the gorge is a smile on a winter's night beside a roaring fire when no one's left alone with themselves. There is a sense amongst all who live here that they have time for each other and they want to share their good fortune.
Central Otago is an unparalleled celebration of the heart. Where you will hear the sounds of solitude, as a beautiful stranger, standing in silence each season, away from your lonesome cities. Only that which is simple and natural defies change. Glacial nature caught in an enormous time warp with all its splendour. Moment by moment Central Otago will quietly reveal its differences. It is an experience, which will enchant you, and then suddenly you will realize you have come close to the earth