Hawkes Ridge Wine Estate is a family-owned boutique winery, vineyard and olive grove at 551 Kereru Road, Maraekākaho, inland from Hastings in Hawke's Bay, where Bob, Carolyn and Douglas welcome visitors to the cellar door to taste the wines and enjoy a pizza or platter under the olive trees. Hawke's Bay is one of New Zealand's great wine regions, best known for full-bodied reds and Chardonnay grown on the gravels of old riverbeds. A cellar door visit rewards an unhurried approach — taste a flight, ask what's drinking well this vintage, and at a boutique estate the person pouring often knows the wines personally. Regulars tend to join wine clubs, which work best when you pick your own mixed cases rather than accept surprise shipments. It's a setting the name captures well — the hawks soaring along the ridge left by the ancient Ngaruroro River give this quiet corner of Maraekākaho its identity.