easy does it

Beyond the bubble of Queenstown, New Zealand's majestic Otago region offers the kinds of adventures you can truly appreciate only by slowing down

- David Amsden

Hop in, mate," said Vaughan Mabee, the jovial mohawked executive chef of Amisfield, from inside his silver pickup. We are just outside the precincts of Queenstown, the most famous city in the New Zealand region of Otago, the birthplace of bungee jumping and the self-proclaimed "adventure capital of the world." "I will show you there is a lot more to this area than leaping off a fucking bridge."

Mabee inhabits a different Otago from the one sought out annually by 2 million thrill-seekers-an Otago I'd come eager to experience. Unfurling beyond the bubble of Queenstown, it's a part of New Zealand that remains remarkably untrodden, offering a different set of thrills: dynamic wineries producing supple Pinot Noirs; former gold rush outposts reimagined by bold personalities; a culinary and hospitality landscape defined by a uniquely Kiwi ethos. Mabee, for instance, operates Amisfield as an extension of his most ardent obsessions: hunting, foraging, and evangelizing about the area's natural wonders. Among his most revered dishes is charcuterie made from paradise ducks he's shot, the cured meat reconstructed to resemble taxidermy, complete with the bird's actual wings.

We met in late February, the tail end of the country's summer. Mabee drove first along State Highway 6, passing through the picturesque valleys of two subregions for winemaking: Bannockburn and Gibbston. Then it was up the serpentine curves of Crown Range Road, the highest main artery in the country, where Mabee veered off onto a stretch of gravel and came to a stop. I was confused. In a corner of the world dense with harrowing beauty-flaxen meadows giving way to snowcapped peaks, glaciers abutting rainforests-it seemed he wanted to show me a rare pocket that was not unnervingly scenic.