Winery Reviews
Amisfield Wine Company
Cromwell, New Zealand
We stopped in at the Amisfield Winery and Bistro for lunch one Friday during a mid-winter jaunt to Queenstown. The impressive schist building housing the Amisfield Bistro is located 15 minutes from the centre of Queenstown and only 5 minutes from Arrowtown. It has a wonderful indoor/outdoor setting and great views of the surround ranges and Lake Hayes.
We arrived 45 minutes before our booking and were not quite ready for lunch, so passed the some time tasting the wonderful range of wines available through the cellar door before wandering amongst the vines, checking out the Massey Ferguson tractor and playing a few ends of petanque.
It was great to be able to taste the wines on offer before sitting down for lunch – by then we knew what we wanted. If you like the white wines, the 2010 Amisfield Sauvignon Blanc is delicious and if you like the red wines, the 2008 Amisfield Pinot Noir was our choice for the day. It is drinking really well now and we were told it will be even better in 5 years time if you are looking for something to put in the cellar.
We opted, on the back of good reports, for the “Trust the Chef” menu. This meant that we didn’t have to choose what to eat (sped things up for the more indecisive of us!) and we just had to sit back, “Trust the Chef” and wait for each course to be brought to us.
The “Trust the Chef” menu changes daily and is designed around whatever fresh ingredients are available on the day. There is no menu for this option, so each course delivered to the table is a surprise. And a happy surprise at that. The dishes were delectable, and were a great match with the 2008 Amisfield Pinot Noir.
Should you give it a go? Definitely.
http://www.amisfield.co.nz/
1113 Wanaka-Cromwell Road
RD 3, Cromwell
New Zealand
Chateau Laguiole Corkscrew
SALE $370
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