Martinborough
Accommodation: Mon 17th Feb – Tue 18th Feb
Mon 17th Feb
It was an overcast morning for our early departure from Napier. We were sorry to be leaving our luxurious apartment but we had a 3.5 hr drive ahead of us to Martinborough where we were picking up a 12:45 pm afternoon wine tour.
There was a bit of drizzle along the way but this cleared before our arrival in Martinborough. It was good wine tasting weather as far as I was concerned; not too hot. Tomorrow was forecast to be 28 degrees so I considered we were lucky to have a cooler day today!
Martinborough was just a small ‘village’. Village is inverted brackets as that is how the locals like to refer to the area and it’s the vibe the place gives off as well. It was reminiscent of small country town villages, like Berrima and Berry, from back home. It was essentially a town square, with some upmarket boutiques and restaurants, surrounded by a small residential area, where many of the buildings had been translocated from Wellington, and then with vineyards beyond. The Town Square had been shaped on the Union Jack with all the streets radiating out from the center to fulfill the pattern. Martinborough had only been put on the map in recent years when the local planning committee realized the rocky / clay soils, that weren’t much good for farming, would be ideal for grapes. The area is small and only produces about 1% of New Zealand wines but it’s considered to be a very high quality wine region.
Our tour guide for the afternoon was Matthew, from Martinborough Wine Tours, and he was a long term resident of Martinborough and had a deep understanding and knowledge of the area. Some interesting points we picked up along the way included:
- John Martin: Founder of Martinborough in 1879 was an Irishman. He was well travelled by the time he developed the area and all the street names reflect this: Texas St, Kansas St, Ohio St, Oxford St and Venice St, to name just a few
- The Marlborough wine region was only started in 1979
- 1980: first vineyard in Martinborough
- Population of Martinborough is only 2,000 but has 12 restaurants. It is considered a ‘Weekend town’. Apparently lots of weddings, hen and stag events. Thus, I’d choose to visit outside of weekends!
- There was a Pinot Noir conference in Christchurch over the weekend and now most of those attendees were in Martinborough
- Even Torbreck, an Aussie wine brand, have bought vineyards in the area
There was one other couple on the tour with us and they were also Aussies. They were from Wombat, near Young in New South Wales, and it turned out that they knew a lot of the same people that Colleen and David knew. It was such a coincidence and not even 6° of separation here.
It was near 5 pm by the time we got back to the hotel and we all went off for a bit of a rest before having dinner in the hotel restaurant, along with what seemed like the whole town. Maybe it was all of the Pinot Noir conference folk? Being a Monday there weren’t many venues open for dinner. We only had the one night here as tomorrow we head to Wellington.
It was just a whistle-stop visit to Martinborough but well worth the while. It would have been nice to have a bit more time here to explore and I think a two night stay, giving you one full day, would be advisable. We just had the one afternoon which was not quite enough. The Martinborough Hotel was lovely and I’d highly recommend this for accommodation but I would choose to avoid weekends (too busy and then, hopefully, you won’t need the ear plugs) and Mondays (many restaurants closed). Being just a 90 minute drive from Wellington it would be well worth a detour here if you’re ever in the south of the north island of New Zealand. Our room (The Didsbury) was lovely. Just FYI: The hotel category of ‘room’ has queen sized beds and ‘suite’ has king sized beds.