The 26 Best Places to Drink and Do in New Zealand

The glass tasting pod suspended above the working winery is a good sign that Cloudy Bay takes its visitors as seriously as its wine. This Marlborough estate, ranked 26th on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, is where New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc effectively got its reputation, and the cellar experience leans into that history without getting musty about it. Private yacht tastings on the Marlborough Sounds are also on offer, which seems excessive and yet somehow right.

Rippon's vines sit right at the edge of Lake Wānaka with the Southern Alps behind them, which makes visiting feel less like a winery tour and more like someone accidentally built a postcard. The Mills family has been farming this land for generations, growing biodynamic, largely ungrafted Pinot Noir in one of New Zealand's most extreme climates. Tastings at the cellar door are free, run by appointment, and capped at six people. It ranks at number 44 on The World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

Greystone sits in the Waipara Valley making cool-climate organic wines, with a chardonnay that keeps getting mentioned in the same breath as the South Island's best. The winery restaurant pairs seasonal dishes with the estate's own bottles, and there's a "Trust the Chef" option if you'd rather hand the whole decision over, which, given the wines, is not a bad instinct. It holds a spot on The World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

The cellar door at this family-run Auckland winery has been quietly stewarded by the same matriarch for longer than most wine regions have had a reputation. The Chardonnays draw comparisons to Burgundy, which sounds like marketing until you taste them. Michael Brajkovich, New Zealand's first Master of Wine, oversees production across 30 hand-harvested hectares. The winery appears on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which tells you the pilgrimage is not an eccentric one.

Meat cleavers double as door handles, which sets the tone before you've ordered a drink. This cocktail bar sits inside a lakefront steakhouse in Queenstown, dressed up in plush contemporary style despite looking like a colonial cottage from the outside. The lake views do a lot of the heavy lifting in summer, and the crowd skews toward people who've had a good day on the slopes and don't mind showing it.

The sleek black barn at the center of this fully organic and biodynamic winery estate sets the tone before you even pour a glass. The minimalist restaurant windows frame rolling hills out to the Southern Alps, the food leans local, and a B&B handles the overnight question. Mountain bikes come with the stay for the Waipara Valley Vineyard Trail, and a pre-booked visit to the neighboring vineyard gets you a proper tour of the sustainable farming side.

You reach the bar by descending a staircase and passing through a doorway flanked by paint tins, which sets up one expectation and then doesn't deliver it. Caretaker is a dim, NYC-styled speakeasy cocktail bar with Sunday jazz and bartenders who'd rather talk to you than hand you a laminated menu. Tell them what you're in the mood for and let them build something around it.

Private cottages on a working winery estate in the Hawke's Bay, with terraces that look out over the Tuki Tuki River and sculpture scattered through the gardens. The River Lodges are the ones to aim for. Winery tours run through the local legend of Te Mata's Sleeping Giant, tastings lean into the Prestige Collection, and the on-site restaurant lists the distance from winery to ingredient right on the menu, which is either charming or guilt-inducing depending on what you order.

A cocktail bar on Tory Street where the menu runs from pre-Prohibition classics to drinks built around white anchovy oil and oyster shell-infused gin. The list treats history as a starting point rather than a destination, so you can order something a century old or something that sounds like a dare. Either way, the bartenders clearly mean business, and the kind of crowd that notices will find them here.

Central Otago pours run deep at this wine bar in Arrowtown, with bottles from the surrounding region joined by Barossa selections and vintage French champagnes. The high-ceilinged room keeps things unfussy, simply dressed tables and a relaxed pace that feels genuinely local rather than performed. An open kitchen runs along one side for anyone who wants something to watch with their glass.

A narrow beer bar tucked opposite Bardeaux on Queenstown's drinking circuit, Mini Bar runs a passport scheme where you drink your way around the world one bottle at a time, from over a hundred international options. Pop art in the Lichtenstein style covers the walls. There are cocktails on offer and a solid back-bar, but this is a beer place at heart, and the bartenders know it too.

Tucked above Minibar up a flight of stairs, this one-room cocktail bar has a vaulted ceiling and a sliver of a view over the corner below. It's a little rough around the edges, which is precisely its charm: bartenders drink here on their nights off, and by midnight the music has climbed accordingly. They chill the wine glasses before pouring cold whites, which tells you something about where their priorities sit.

A rusting padlock hangs off a battered blue door down a secluded alleyway off Arrowtown's main drag, and that's the whole address you'll need. This atmospheric bar sits in old gold-mining country where the high street already looks like a Western set, and the bar leans into that energy without trying too hard. The kind of place you find by accident and tell people about like a secret, even though everyone already knows.

Absinthe fountains, crystal decanters, and gold bartending equipment crowd the shelves of this cocktail bar, lit almost entirely by tea-lights. The menu sorts drinks by historical category, fizzes and daisies and the rest, each with a footnote on who invented it and where. The vibe is full-throated heritage emporium, which makes the thumping dance music either a charming contradiction or a minor existential crisis, depending on your mood.

Upstairs from the Red Rock pub, this small whisky bar fits leather chesterfields, barrel tables, and glass cases of whisky paraphernalia into a room that feels like a gentleman's club someone actually uses. Your feet rest on an old piece of railway line at the bar, which sets the tone. The selection covers Scotch, Japanese, Canadian, and bourbon, thorough enough for a good evening, and there are other spirits tucked in old crates below for anyone who wandered in by accident.