The Journal — NZ Luxury Homes

Amisfield: Queenstown's Most Complete Wine and Dining Destination, Reopened

Discover the newly reopened Amisfield at Lake Hayes, where an evolved à la carte lunch and renowned tasting menu redefine Queenstown’s organic viticulture experience.

Published 16 September 2026 · 10 min read

Category: Architecture

Amisfield at Lake Hayes has reopened as of July 2026, featuring a refreshed dual-service culinary approach. Guests can enjoy a refined à la carte lunch by day and the celebrated multi-course dinner tasting menu by night, both deeply rooted in seasonal New Zealand produce and the winery’s renowned organic Central Otago viticulture.

Twenty minutes from Queenstown, on the shores of Lake Hayes with Coronet Peak rising to the north and the Remarkables to the south, Amisfield occupies a position that most wineries would be content simply to describe. A rustic stone building — low, warm, and anchored to its lakeside setting — houses what has become one of New Zealand's most acclaimed dining experiences alongside a cellar door producing some of Central Otago's finest organic wines. For guests exploring the Queenstown wine corridor, it is not one option among many. It is the one that everything else is measured against.

In mid-2026, Amisfield completed a period of renovation and reopened with a refreshed dining concept that sharpens its already distinctive proposition. By day, a refined à la carte menu now anchors the cellar door experience — local, seasonal, and sustainable, served alongside the full Amisfield wine range. By night, the dinner tasting menu that earned Amisfield a place on the World's 50 Best Discovery Restaurants List in 2022 and Restaurant of the Year at the Cuisine Good Food Awards in the same year continues its immersive, multi-course journey through New Zealand's finest seasonal produce. Two experiences, two tempos, one address.

The Vineyard: One of Central Otago's Largest Single Sites

Amisfield's vineyards are located in the Pisa sub-region of Central Otago — one of the warmest and most distinctive growing environments in the region, known for producing Pinot Noir of particular concentration and structure. Established in 1988, the vineyard covers some of the largest single-owned vineyard land in the region, a scale that gives Amisfield's winemaking team the ability to farm by block rather than by region — selecting parcels with specific soil profiles and microclimates to produce distinct expressions of each variety rather than blended averages.

Amisfield is certified organic. The commitment to organic viticulture in Central Otago's arid, drip-irrigated climate required developing a genuinely new approach — one that the team has done openly, sharing their innovation with the broader industry. Working alongside retired farmer Bert Sim, Amisfield developed a mid-row irrigation system that simultaneously controls weed growth and supplies nitrogen to the vines using solar energy and rhizobia bacteria. The result: under-vine weed control without herbicides, and irrigation water directed to vine nutrition rather than wasted sustaining weeds. It is the kind of operational innovation that defines a winery committed to organic farming as a serious agricultural practice rather than a marketing position.

The primary variety is Pinot Noir. Amisfield's Pinot Noir is consistently reviewed as one of the Central Otago benchmark expressions: reviewed by Decanter, served in the region's finest restaurants, and ordered at Jack's Point Golf Club's Amisfield Restaurant — a separate dining partnership that brings Amisfield wines to Queenstown's most celebrated residential golf community. Alongside Pinot Noir, the winery produces aromatic whites — Sauvignon Blanc, Dry Riesling, and Pinot Gris — that each reflect the Pisa sub-region's particular balance of heat accumulation and cool nights.

Chief Winemaker Sam Davies has described the Pisa terroir as providing one of the rarest combinations in organic viticulture: heat sufficient for full ripeness, cold sufficient for retained acidity, and soils dry enough to stress the vines productively without requiring chemical intervention. The resulting wines carry what reviewers consistently describe as a textural precision and aromatic lift that distinguishes Amisfield from its neighbours in the Gibbston Valley and Bannockburn sub-regions. Central Otago wine region guide

The Cellar Door: A Sophisticated Tasting Experience

Amisfield's cellar door is one of the most sophisticated in the Queenstown wine corridor — a formal, seated tasting experience that gives adequate time to each wine rather than the rushed flight format of high-throughput venues. The tasting fee is waived with the purchase of a bottle, making it one of the more generously structured cellar door experiences available in the region.

Image: Sally Scott / International Traveller — Wine tasting at Amisfield's sophisticated cellar door

The range on tasting spans the full Amisfield production: Pinot Noir in multiple configurations, the Dry Riesling (described by multiple visitors as among the finest dry Rieslings they have tasted in New Zealand), Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Gris. Back vintages of the Pinot Noir are available for Wine Club members, and the cellar door team's depth of knowledge of each wine's specific vineyard origin makes the tasting conversation genuinely substantive rather than formulaic.

Private tastings — featuring up to ten Amisfield wines including back vintages — are available to Wine Club members and by arrangement for groups. The Wine Club itself offers a dining discount alongside tasting and wine tour perks, making it a sensible investment for anyone planning multiple visits to the region or wanting ongoing access to Amisfield's production.

The Restaurant: Reopened July 2026 with a New Format

Amisfield's restaurant reopened in July 2026 following a period of renovation, now operating two distinct services that serve different visitor needs without compromising either.

Lunch: Refined À La Carte — The daytime offering is a refined à la carte menu running from 11:30am to 3:30pm, Wednesday to Sunday. Local, seasonal, and sustainable ingredients prepared through techniques drawn from global culinary traditions, served alongside the classic cellar door experience. The philosophy remains unchanged: everything on the plate has a provenance, and that provenance connects to the landscape visible through the windows. Lake Hayes in the foreground. Coronet Peak and the Remarkables framing the view.

Dinner: The Tasting Menu — The evening service, running from 6:30pm Wednesday to Sunday, is the full immersive experience that established Amisfield's international reputation. A dinner-only tasting menu shaped entirely by what is local, seasonal, wild, and endemic to New Zealand — a format that has seen over two dozen courses in a single service, described by a Tripadvisor reviewer with extensive fine dining experience across multiple countries as deserving of a Michelin Star for sure. Ingredients like smoked eel, pūtangitangi (native duck), Central Otago stone fruit, and hyper-seasonal wild-foraged produce appear alongside Amisfield wines selected for each course.

The restaurant team includes a dedicated forager and an experienced charcutier who hunt, gather, and curate produce to match the menu's philosophy. The kitchen garden supplements what foraging and local relationships supply. It is a fully integrated food and wine system — one that reflects the same organic, place-specific philosophy as the vineyard.

Reservations are essential for both lunch and dinner and can be made through the Amisfield website.

The Lake Hayes Setting and the Queenstown Property Connection

Amisfield's address — Lake Hayes, 20 minutes from central Queenstown — places it in one of the Queenstown-Lakes district's most scenically distinctive pockets. Lake Hayes itself, at the base of the Arrow River valley between Arrowtown and Queenstown, is a glacially formed lake of particular beauty: calm water, mountain reflections, and the historic village of Arrowtown a five-minute drive away.

The broader Lake Hayes corridor — from Amisfield's lakeside position south through the Arrow River valley and east toward Arrowtown — is part of the Queenstown-Lakes residential market that has been under particular buyer pressure in 2026. The district recorded a 91 percent increase in NZ$5 million-plus sales between 2023 and 2024, with the Lake Hayes and Arrowtown sub-regions among the most sought-after addresses for buyers who want proximity to Queenstown without its density.

For a buyer exploring this market, an afternoon at Amisfield — a long lunch on the lakeside terrace, a cellar door tasting, the walk around the vineyard perimeter — provides the clearest possible sense of what daily life in this corridor looks like at its finest. It is the neighbourhood at its best: quiet, unhurried, and extraordinarily beautiful. Jack's Point Golf Course Queenstown Millbrook Resort Queenstown golf

The Amisfield and Jack's Point Partnership

Amisfield's wines appear on the wine list at Jack's Point Golf Club's restaurant — the Amisfield Restaurant at Jack's Point, a partnership that brings Amisfield's organic Pinot Noir and aromatic whites to the most celebrated residential golf community in the Queenstown district. The partnership reflects both the geographic proximity of the two properties and the shared aesthetic sensibility of their audiences: people who are serious about wine, food, and the quality of the landscape they inhabit.

For buyers exploring the Jack's Point residential estate — where over 1,300 homes are planned across 1,200 hectares of world-ranked golf land — the Amisfield partnership is part of the lifestyle infrastructure that makes the community function. Good wine, good food, and a world-ranked golf course on the fairways: it is the most complete picture of what the Queenstown-Lakes lifestyle community looks like at its most considered.

The Standard-Bearer Returns

Amisfield's renovation period was, in the Queenstown restaurant scene, the absence everyone noticed. The reopening in July 2026 with a sharpened, dual-format dining proposition — à la carte by day, immersive tasting menu by night — restores what has been, since 2022, the benchmark against which Queenstown-area dining is measured. The setting has not changed. The kitchen philosophy has not changed. The organic vineyard and the wines it produces have not changed. What has changed is that all of it is now more clearly organised around the two different ways that visitors and buyers want to experience it.

For those exploring residential and lifestyle property in the Queenstown-Lakes district and the Lake Hayes corridor, nzluxuryhomes.nz provides private access to the most considered holdings in this market.

To visit Amisfield: reservations at amisfield.co.nz or +64 3 442 0556.

Key Takeaways

• Amisfield has officially reopened with a new daytime à la carte dining experience that complements their world-class evening tasting menu.
• The estate operates one of the region's most significant single-owned organic vineyards, focusing on high-concentration Pinot Noir.
• Operational innovation in the vineyard, such as solar-powered, herbicide-free irrigation, defines Amisfield’s commitment to sustainable agricultural excellence.
• The Lake Hayes cellar door offers a sophisticated, seated tasting experience that highlights the full range of Pisa-grown aromatic wines and Pinot Noirs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is new at Amisfield since its 2026 reopening?

The 2026 reopening introduces a refined à la carte lunch service to complement their legendary dinner tasting menu. This new daytime format provides a more flexible, sophisticated dining option that showcases local, seasonal, and sustainable ingredients while allowing guests to enjoy the full range of Amisfield wines in a relaxed setting.

Is Amisfield winery certified organic?

Yes, Amisfield is fully certified organic. The estate uses innovative, science-backed methods to maintain its vineyards in the Pisa sub-region, including a unique mid-row irrigation system that uses solar energy and rhizobia bacteria to control weeds and feed the vines without the use of chemical herbicides.

What makes Amisfield’s Pinot Noir unique?

Amisfield’s Pinot Noir is defined by the unique microclimate of the Pisa sub-region, which provides the perfect balance of heat for ripening and cold for acidity retention. The winemaking team farms by specific vineyard block, resulting in wines known for their textural precision, aromatic lift, and deep concentration.

Do I need a reservation to dine at Amisfield?

Yes, reservations are essential for both the daytime à la carte lunch and the evening tasting menu at Amisfield. Due to the high demand for this world-class dining destination and its intimate, seated cellar door experience, visitors are encouraged to book well in advance through the official website.

Where is the Amisfield winery located?

Amisfield is situated on the shores of Lake Hayes, ideally positioned between Queenstown and Arrowtown. This stunning location, framed by Coronet Peak and the Remarkables, is only a 20-minute drive from central Queenstown, making it a convenient yet immersive escape into the heart of the Central Otago wine region.

Expert Insight

Amisfield has successfully transcended the traditional winery model by integrating rigorous organic viticulture with a world-class, place-specific culinary philosophy that feels both modern and deeply connected to the land.

91 — percent increase in NZ$5 million-plus property sales in the district between 2023 and 2024 (Queenstown-Lakes district real estate data)

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