![The Matakana Coast, north of Auckland, is an epicurean hot spot. The Brick Bay Wines Sculpture Trail is one of many ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/y/0/image.related.afrWideArticleLead.940x529.gx3glz.png/1499239443315.jpg)
I'm sitting with Mary and Dave Evans around their kitchen table on New Zealand's North Island, with an aging blind and deaf cat on my knees, a glass of sangiovese in my hand and a young Belgian shepherd curled up at my feet.
It's early afternoon at the Evans family's Heron's Flight winery on the Matakana Coast, a 45-minute drive north of Auckland, but as we begin to taste from a bottle on the table, Mary confides she's already had a couple of glasses.
"I went for a walk this morning with my friend, then we decided to go and drink wine and eat pasta," she says with a giggle. "It's honestly the Wild West out here when it comes to how we behave, or at least we are as wild as we can be at our age!"
Me? I'm finding the Matakana Coast more mild west than the Wild West, if being wild means drinking a good glass of red with a bowl of spaghetti under the vines after a stroll along the sand at nearby Omaha Beach.
![Dave Evans, proprietor of Heron's Flight Winery on the Matakana Coast, is known as the "Einstein of Wine" by the locals.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/x/f/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499067543194.jpg)
Dave, known as the "Einstein of wine" for his eccentric appearance and gifted way with the grape, volunteers that the Belgian shepherd is named Dionysus in honour of Heron's Flight's speciality of making wine in the clay amphoras so cleverly used for the purpose by the ancient Greeks.
The Greeks would find plenty to like at Heron's Flight, a wonderfully eccentric and ramshackle concern – "that's Ken and Dave from next door out there in the backyard, they've come to fix the leaky roof" – that celebrates hedonism and honesty in equal measure.
Rustic simplicity
"We don't like to say we are authentic because it's such a buzzword these days. We prefer to say we are rustic," Mary says, politely.
A forthright approach to good food and wine abounds on the coast, as I discover when I take the Matakana Taste Tour to sample the area's cheeses, meats, oysters, honey, and more.
!["Authentic is such a buzzword these days. We prefer to say we are rustic," says Heron's Flight Winery co-owner Mary Evans.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/x/1/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499067985063.jpg)
Tour guide Liz Bays takes me first to Puhoi Valley Cheese Co, a boutique factory in the Puhoi Valley, where at 10am I eye off a board of 16 varieties before sampling a feisty gorgonzola, a milder washed rind, a sinfully gooey brie and a pleasingly piquant mature aged cheddar.
We're in the cafe but floor-to-ceiling glass windows behind the counter reveal rubber-booted and hair-netted workers in the factory, where they shape wheels of cheese that range from squishy milky pale to firm and richly golden, depending on where they are in the life cycle of their particular variety.
It's too early for the nearby Puhoi Pub, notorious for the bikies who come from all around the North Island to congregate each weekend for a Sunday session. So instead, we head to the Honey Centre in the nearby village of Warkworth. The retro wooden hexagonal building is like a hybrid of a log cabin from Twin Peaks and some kind of Weird Science geometry experiment, but the 29 manuka honeys for tasting at the honey bar are all kinds of delicious – fruit-infused, alcoholic or virgin varieties that come in textures ranging from creamed and candied to molten liquid.
Coffee stop
![The Matakana Village Farmers' Market offers fresh flowers, smoothies, vegies, bread, oysters and other delectables for ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/x/n/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499067718303.jpg)
But I'm well overdue for my morning coffee, so thankfully our next stop is Matakana Coffee Roasters for a heart starter at the weekend Matakana Village Farmers' Market. There are oysters, smoothies, vegies and bread for sale there each Saturday by the river. That's also where you'll find Lindesay Smith, who founded his boutique homemade coffee business after becoming disillusioned with working in advertising.
"After the '80s crash I went to Mexico and Hawaii and learnt how to surf and to make coffee," he says. "I decided that after advertising I wanted to be one of the good guys, so I moved to Matakana and started making coffee."
Today, he lives on 120 hectares by the beach with 165 cows, six horses, and three dogs – "the full tragedy" – and relishes the opportunity to surf before and after work.
"There are so many unique creatives in this community," he says of the locals.
![At the Puhoi Valley Cheese Co, there's a startling array of freshly made cheeses on display from the factory just behind ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/y/7/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499067817496.jpg)
Much of their work is on display along the Sculpture Trail at Brick Bay Wines, a rather more contemporary operation than Heron's Flight. Sound works, sculptures and even a folly are among the exhibition of works along the trail, which winds through the winery at Snell's Beach. There, we feast on an antipasto platter of local meats, vegetables and the aforementioned Puhoi Valley cheese. Satiated and a little sleepy, there's time for a brief pit stop at the aptly named Chocolate Brown chocolate shop in Warkworth before we return to Auckland.
Capital delights
You'd think I'd be too full to contemplate more food, but I'm curious to see how the produce of regions such as Matakana materialises on the capital's dining tables, so I take the Auckland Gourmet Food and Wine Tour with local company Unique Tours.
Unfortunately, its bucketing down when I meet Mimi Olds Spence outside the Auckland Ferry Termial, but the owner of Unique Tours is cheerfully optimistic that our walking tour will be delicious, if not dry.
![Matakana Coffee Roasters on New Zealand's North Island makes coffee in small batches to ensure the freshest brew.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/w/1/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499067150474.jpg)
She's right. I'm familiar with the better-known Auckland restaurants through being fortunate enough to be wined and dined when I visit the city each year for New Zealand Fashion Week, but Olds Spence takes me on an odyssey to lesser-known gems.
We start at tapas-style Mediterranean restaurant Oaken, where head chef Andy Graham serves us smoked mozzarella with sun-dried olives and lemon on flat bread, washed down with an equally zesty Central Otago riesling.
It's then time to head down one of those hard-to-find laneways to French bistro Touquet, where chef Antoine Sallas (yes, he's French) has come in after hours to create pork rillettes paired with a Gisborne chardonnay.
I should mention that our afternoon toddle around Auckland almost comes to a gruesome end several times, thanks to the city council's new vision for roads that are shared by pedestrians and cars alike. Our dicing with death is rewarded when we arrive at The Kimchi Project, a Korean-inspired restaurant that serves off-the-wall variations of recipes handed down by owner Ben Huh's mother.
A Man O' War malbec is served with some very morish mushroom risotto around the corner at Wine Chambers before I repair to my lodgings at Hotel DeBrett, where chef Mark Sycamore has a reputation for dishing up the kind of casual yet vibrant cuisine Auckland is renowned for. His restaurant, DeBretts Kitchen, comes with mid-century furniture and an open fire and is as popular with locals as it is with hotel guests. I enjoy a chat around the fire after a rib-sticking kawakawa and ricotta gnocchi, and remember something Mimi Olds Spence had said to me earlier in the day when I asked her to describe her tours.
"I'm not just about food: my role is also about being a new friend in a city."
Thanks to Olds Spence and Liz Bays, I have indeed discovered new food, new friends and yes, it must be said – a very great capacity for the former.
Georgina Safe travelled to Auckland as a guest of Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development.
![In Auckland, The Kimchi Project restaurant uses regional ingredients to cook Korean-inspired cuisine.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145948/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/r/w/w/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499067872999.jpg)
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