Written by, Sarah Lang, Stuff.co.nz.

Full article: shorturl.at/eopzU

In New Zealand’s only true wine village, just 90 minutes’ drive from Wellington, you can sample your vino of choice at wineries on your own time, or on guided tours by foot, bike, or car. Best known for its pinot noir, Martinborough also produces other varieties including chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and syrah. It has 20 cellar doors: wineries that open to the public for tastings.

Martinborough’s not all about wine, though. The village has excellent eateries, clothing boutiques, an art gallery, a bookshop, and a sweets shop, for starters – and there’s accommodation (from budget to boutique) in town and nearby.

Best Coffee Spot

Neighbourhood Coffee Café and Roastery has a chill vibe, cushions covered in coffee sacks, and cutlery tins wrapped in photocopies of $20 notes. They roast ethically sourced, organic beans, make a damn good flat white and offer a healthy menu including smoothies and granola. intheneighbourhood.co.nz

EAT

Best Lunch Spot

Open for lunch from 12pm until around 2pm (and also for dinner), Tirohana Restaurant – part of Tirohana Estate, one of Martinborough’s oldest wineries – offers both casual and fine dining in its restaurant and on its terrace (weather permitting). The staff will match wines to dishes, if you want. tirohanaestate.com

Best Dinner Spot

Walk into Cool Change Bar & Eatery, and you’ll find a busy bar with great tunes. Venture into the dining room out back and it feels like a different place altogether: quieter, with retro kitsch décor done well. The chef sometimes talks to diners about what fresh, seasonal, produce he uses, and why. coolc.co.nz

PLAY

WINE O’CLOCK

It’s well worth taking a guided Martinborough Wine Walk. Going by foot works well because, unlike more spread-out wine regions, many of Martinborough’s wineries are neighbours. Many are situated on the “golden mile” south of town: the alluvial terraces of the long-dry riverbed.

Most of the vineyards on these guided walks aren’t usually open to the public, largely because they’re small operations – often run by couples – who want to work hard without distractions and are focusing not on local sales but sales online, in the domestic and sometimes export markets.

Nicola Belsham, a Martinborough Wine Walk guide, knows all the winemakers, and knows how to open doors (literally and figuratively). That’s how her groups get to visit small vineyards and wineries that you couldn’t visit otherwise. Each wine walk is plotted differently, depending on which winemakers are around and who has time, and how long the visitors want to spend. So you might visit five wineries, for instance.

Put on some sturdy walking shoes, because you won’t just be sauntering along the road and up vine-lined driveways.

You’ll be traipsing through paddocks and climbing fences to get to different vineyards clustered close together. There’s actually something pretty cool – and more authentic – about clambering over a stile (don’t wear a skirt) to see winemakers hop off tractors and emerge from sheds to say hi and share their stories.

Don McConachy from Devotus Vineyard prefers to call himself a vigneron (wine-grower) rather than a wine-maker mainly because “wine is grown not made”. He leads us through his rows of vines, giving them fond glances like you might give a small child. There are two-year-olds through to 35-year-olds. “We can’t make good wine out of bad fruit so 80% of the wine is on the vine, so to speak,” he says.

McConachy and wife Valerie Worsdale do everything themselves, in a deliberately small operation. They make three kinds of Pinot Noir each year – sold online only – and there's a waiting list. In their tractor shed, we taste a 2018 pinot. It’s very good.

We also visit Tiwaiwaka Wines (the Maori word for fantail), run by husband and wife Morton and Elise Anderson. Morton takes us into a room where their 2019 Pinot noir are ageing in 30 barrels. He uses a “Wine Thief” (a tube-shaped pipette) to siphon out small quantities of wine for us to taste. “We’re siphoning not thieving,” Morton quips. We compare the siphoned 2019 Pinot Noir with tasters from a 2013 Pinot Noir and 2006 Cabernet Merlot. They’re delicious.

Here, Belsham models how to best taste wine in what is almost performance art. First, she swirls the wine around in a glass, then sips and swirls it around her mouth, while breathing to “get flavour into the olfactory gland”. She flings around words like structure, flavour, tartness, and notes. We learn a few other gems. Who knew that strong winds impact the grapes – resulting in greater intensity of flavour?

Belsham is also something of a local historian. As she explains, in the 1970s, Martinborough was a “dying town”. In 1978, locals and city councillors met to discuss how they could rejuvenate the area – and give it an identity. The answer was the humble vine. Soil scientist Dr Derek Milne conducted research that found the area was an ideal spot for growing and making wine given its dry and cool climate, with the North Island’s lowest rainfall.

Milne and his colleague Dr Neil McCallum each planted a vineyard (Martinborough Vineyard and Dry River, respectively) – and others followed suit. By 1986, Martinborough had five vineyards. Now the Wairarapa has 40-plus vineyards, most in Martinborough.

Most of Martinborough’s vineyards remain family-owned and run, Belsham says. “It’s a collaborative community where people share knowledge and equipment, and support each other.” That certainly seems true, unless the winemakers we meet are all good actors.

In the village, on a corner overlooking Martinborough Square, The Wine Bank – a former bank – stocks around 1000 bottles of 64 different wines: 85 per cent from the Wairarapa and many from Martinborough. Some of its wines aren’t available to taste at wineries.

This is more than just a wine shop. What immediately catches your eye are what can only be described as wine vending machines. Each of these eight machines dispenses, via taps, wine from one of four bottles (at either room temp or refrigerated temperature).

Marty Davis, who opened The Wine Bank in December 2018, laughs when he hears me refer to the “wine vending machines”. “We call it a 'self-service wine-tasting experience'.” These “Wine Dispenser Systems” machines, owned by Dunedin-based company WineEmotion, are so far only used by three New Zealand wine stores. At the Wine Bank, you can ask for advice from Davis and his “wine-experience facilitators”, or just do your own thing.

Jim, a friendly American, gets a microchipped card from a staff member, then chooses the vending machine that dispenses pinot noirs. He positions his glass under the chosen tap, swipes his card, presses a button and out comes his ATA Rangi pinot noir. He’s opted for the small “taster” amount; you can also get a half glass, or a full glass.

Jim tries some other Pinot Noirs: Dry River, Craggy Range, Escarpment, and Te Awa. “What a great idea this place is,” he says to a staff member, as he buys a bottle of the ATA Rangi, and pays for the "tab" on his card. He then sits down in one of The Wine Bank’s comfy nooks with his wife and they tuck into a gourmet platter.

Davis, a former social worker, carefully restored the heritage building himself, having worked out a way to make wine part of his day. “Wine,” Davis says, “is part of Martinborough’s DNA.

BEST PHOTO SPOT

Pose for a pic in the large, grassy village square from which streets radiate in eight different directions, in a shape loosely based on the Union Jack. The colonial buildings make a great backdrop.

STAY

ON A BUDGET

The Martinborough Top 10 Holiday Park has apartments and studio cabins far more attractive and comfortable than you’d find in most holiday parks (it also offers campervan and tent sites). It’s a quick walk to town and wineries. mtop10.nz

FOR A FAMILY

At Brackenridge Country Retreat and Spa, located amidst rolling hills near Martinborough, choose between self-contained two- or four-bedroom cottages, or smaller studios, with continental-breakfast provisions by the kettle. brackenridge.co.nz

FOR THE LOCATION

To get to Whitimanuka Retreat, drive through a farm, along dirt roads and up hills to your destination: a Scandi-style “boutique cottage” with a glorious view over a vista of the Wairarapa, and astro binoculars to observe one of the country’s best night skies. It’s elegant, luxurious simplicity. whitimanuka.co.nz

LUXURY OPTION

Built in 1882, The Martinborough Hotel is a local institution that offers, in its original building, luxury heritage suites featuring aged wooden floors and old-fashioned clawfoot tubs. The Petit Suites in the neighbouring building have recreated many of the older building’s distinctive heritage features. The Martinborough Hotel is also part restaurant (Union Square Bistro) and corner pub. martinboroughhotel.co.nz

COOL THING

SWEET TEETH

Kids, and adults with a sweet tooth, will go wild for The Martinborough Sweet Shop and Chocolatier, with jars too numerous to count full of pretty much every sweet you can imagine, from Raspberry Drops and Sherbet to Rock Candies and Pinot Noir Chocolates. Good luck choosing.