good life: Matakana: New Zealand's Hunter Valley?

View of Omaha and surrounds from OBV vineyard

Matakana....maybe it's even New Zealand's up and coming Sonoma county.... Ok, that might be a stretch, but wouldn't that be fabulous.

Matakana is only 42 minutes door to door from our Auckland home (according to the new GPS), so it was a no brainer to rent a bach at nearby Omaha Beach for the weekend with some friends as a quick winter getaway.

So......The ingredients of a worthy wine/food country region according to me:

Fresh, seasonal, locally grown produce:
High marks for Matakana. It's compulsory to visit the Matakana Market on a Saturday Morning. I got the most amazing winter carrots and root vegetables and some buffalo mozzarella, from which we made dinner that night. There are also the roadside honesty boxes, which don't have a lot of press outside of New Zealand - it's a bit of a novelty to live in a place where people trustingly leave food and a box full of cash on the side of the road!

A view across Matakana Market from Matakana Market Kitchen

Food:
The choices are starting to increase, but this is where a huge opportunity lies in my opinion. Sonoma/Napa really does have the edge on this, but I guess they've been going a lot longer. Will we ever have a French Laundry or Cyrus (or even Girl and the Fig)? Who knows, but what we did have wasn't too bad.

Worth a visit: Matakana Market Kitchen. As the name suggests, it's right at the market, so it was the perfect place for brunch. The coffee is good and the menu has some non standard dishes. I had the Welsh Rarebit which was made with a number of locavore ingredients. Absolutely yummy.

Welsh Rarebit, Matakana Style

The coffee went down well......

OBV Vineyard for a lunch platter: Talk about a spectacular setting, overlooking Omaha and the coast. The platter was interesting, but the scenery was really the main attraction. A notable mention goes to the nice glass of their Montepulciano. They are onto a winner here.

OBV Vinyard

Other places we didn't go to this time, but which deserve a mention:
Sawmill Cafe in Leigh - this is a bit of an institution which serves good pizza and nice bistro food.
Ransom Wines - great platters to go with some up and coming wines. I particularly like their 'K Syrah'.
Plume: Haven't been here but it's getting a lot of good reviews, so might need to put this on the list for the next visit.

Wine:
The wine needs a bit of work before it's at the level of some of New Zealand's other wine regions. There are a few pockets of brilliant individual wines, but by and large, it's pretty average. Wineries worth keeping an eye on other than OBV and Ransom as above: I do like some of the Hyperion, Heron's flight and Ascension wines. The big daddy is the Bordeaux blend of Providence. Their wines are in the +$200 range, so more of a special occasion wine and it really is a stunner.

Arts and Crafts:
Well, an honorable mention must go to Morris and James, who do the loveliest pottery.

But...
The piece de resistance for Matakana is its proximity to the coast. Get your veggies, grab some food and then take a walk along some of New Zealand's most beautiful beaches. Last weekend we even saw two whales. I have not really done any whale watching to date, so this was a real treat for me. It turned out to be a mum and her calf who were splashing around just of the coast. Allister and I watched them for over an hour, it was just magical. Attached is the link from the paper the following day.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10829911