5 Best Sights in Waipara Valley, Christchurch and Canterbury

With its distinctive black barn tasting room and restaurant on the warm, sunny slopes of the Omihi Hills, this family-run vineyard has become a local landmark. The award-winning architecture perfectly complements the acclaimed pinot noir, chardonnay, and riesling vintages hand-harvested and made on site. Add to this a delicious lunch and tasting menu, focusing on the best local produce and superb service to match the wine. While you dine and sip, enjoy a beautiful view overlooking the vineyards and west to the Main Divide.

Built from limestone blocks, the Hurunui Hotel, New Zealand's oldest continually licensed hotel (since 1860), refreshed weary drovers bringing sheep down from Marlborough; it's still a great place to rest yourself with a beverage. There are seven quaint rooms in this stagecoach-style hotel, and the restaurant with its old-fashioned pub serves à la carte dinners including a succulent fillet steak. You can dine in the pub, where there is a roaring fire in winter, or outside in the tree-lined beer garden.

Family-run Pegasus Bay has one of the region's best reputations for wine and food, and the helicopters lined up on the lawn at lunchtime will confirm that. Taste the award-winning rieslings, chardonnay, and pinot noir while you look through a window at floor-to-ceiling stacks of oak aging casks. It has been ranked among the top five wine producers nationally by Robert Parker's buyer's guide, and it's been named Best Winery Restaurant in New Zealand by Cuisine magazine nine times. In good weather, dine outdoors in the garden, or picnic in a natural amphitheater by a small man-made lake. It's best to book ahead if visiting for a meal or large group tastings.

Kym and Ben Rayner are consummate winemakers, and Kym is one of the pioneers of Waipara winemaking. At Torlesse Wines they use grapes from several vineyards around Waipara and farther afield, and riesling is their biggest seller. Sauvignon blanc, gewürztraminer, chardonnay, pinot gris, pinot noir, and rosé are also produced, as are the Omihi Road reserve wines and Old Reserve port, made in the same barrels since 1992. While you're here you can also check out the local arts and crafts for sale.

The huge, cathedral-like European castle rock-and-timber building at Waipara Hills, although just more than 20 years old, looks somewhat medieval. The Waipara Hills riesling, pinot gris, rosé, and pinot noir are all worth trying. The label uses grapes from Marlborough, Otago, and Waipara so there's a lot happening in a bottle. The café in the Cloisters, the high ceiling–medieval style section of the building, is open for lunch and afternoon coffee. There's a cellar door across the entrance hall for tastings.