Hawke’s Bay wine region deserves greatness

What doesn’t the Hawke’s Bay wine region have going for it? Any asylum-seeking grape variety you care to name can settle there and thrive. The region’s top wine people are a bunch of good bastards, always an important factor. It has history – Mission Estate is the country’s oldest winery – and it has cult wines (eg Te Mata Coleraine, Esk Valley, The Terraces, and Bilancia’s La Collina). Its home base is wealthy and supportive, and only getting more so (just look at the current wave of cashed-up baby boomers moving to the Bay).