Too frequently I hear wines from California described as full-bodied, made with lots of ripe, over-extracted fruit and a generous exposure to sweet-smelling American oak.
Lying in the shadow of the active volcano Mt Tarawera, Rotorua Lakes is an unrivalled natural landscape where water is clean enough to drink, sweet-smelling air comes alive with native birdsong and fern-filled forests are as bright as a bottle of absinthe.