Sure, we know it as the land of Hobbits, bungee jumping, and more sheep per capita than anywhere else on earth. But just beyond the wild, raw landscapes, another New Zealand beckons: one of sophisticated restaurants, silvery olive groves, and the most lush, grape-heavy vineyards this side of Bordeaux. Chang-rae Lee goes deep into Middle-earth to discover a country whose greatest beauty just might be found in a bottle

Dusk is falling over the Clutha River, and I'm slowly making my way down a path on the grassy western bank, casting for rainbows and browns. I didn't come to Central Otago, on New Zealand's South Island, to fish; I came for the wine, and for the golf. But here I am anyway, on my last evening in the country, and I've got a fly rod in hand instead of a goblet of pinot noir. Not that I mind. There's been plenty of superb wine, and spectacular sights on the golf links, but after spying a few trout during my daytime walks—stout three- and four-pounders coolly cutting through the slower eddies beneath the overhanging branches of the willow trees—I've snuck out, while everyone else is back at the lodge. The water is dark and fast-flowing, and its sound is like an unceasing, full-throated exhalation. The Clutha, which was called Mata-au, or "surface current," by the Maori, is New Zealand's second-longest river but its greatest in volume. With its prodigious flow and relatively narrow cut, it moves much too swiftly to wade in, so I have to stay on the bank, mostly roll casting because of the brush and trees behind me, waiting for any strike. What did the sage say? Between the wish and the thing, life lies waiting.

In our regular life, of course, waiting is the great bane, what we desperately avoid, what drives our desire to move faster and faster. But in this land, I think, waiting may be its own pleasure. All you need do is stay still and look around: Above me, the last reaches of daylight stream in a fluted fan between the ridged top of the Pisa Range and a wide, flat disk of hovering clouds, the illumination momentarily plashing the summits of the terraced, sheep-dotted hills across the way, sky and earth gleaming with hues of goldenrod and storm. And in the span of an extended breath, it's nearly gone: The evening clicks in a notch closer. So I cast again; the caddis flies have hatched, but a strong breeze has kicked up too, threatening to blow them all away, and I know I'll likely have no luck tonight.

My wife and young daughters and I have spent the past two weeks—over Christmas break, the start of summer here—driving the countryside and towns on both the North and South islands. Our intent is to tour the vineyards and play some golf and, as we do on all our trips, eat our way across the landscape. It's our first visit to New Zealand, and I'd rather not leave for a while. It's roomy here, even in its populated spaces, and there's an expansiveness that's no doubt due to the fact that there are just 4.2 million people in the country (the same number live in Brooklyn and Manhattan combined), which is composed of two very large islands, together slightly smaller than Italy or Japan. Whenever I mentioned the trip to friends, the word bungee immediately came up, or else Frodo, ready tags by which we Up Over folks like to think of Middle-earth. Like a lot of people, I love a rich fable, the moody mise-en-scène of some brooding, crepuscular realm, and because I also don't mind a good contrived brush with death every once in a while—it keeps the blood running and solvent—I did in fact toy with the idea of leaping off a bridge. Driving past the famous spot of the original bungee jumps, just outside Queenstown, we saw the poor, wretched souls perched on the ledge, all strapped up with only one place to go.