Martinborough and the Wairarapa Wine Region

A Grid Planned Colonial Village An Hour From Wellington, The Centre Of The Wairarapa'S Pinot Noir Country, Small Enough To Walk Or Cycle Between Cellar Doors In An Afternoon, With A Town Square Laid Out In The Shape Of The Union Jack By Its Nineteenth Century Founder · Martinborough, Wellington

Martinborough is a grid-planned colonial village in the Wairarapa, about an hour from Wellington over the Rimutaka Range, at the centre of a wine region built almost entirely around Pinot Noir. Free-draining, stony river terraces around the village share enough in common with Burgundy that early growers planted it deliberately, beginning in the 1980s with pioneers such as Ata Rangi, and the comparison has stuck in the wine trade ever since. The town itself, founded in 1879 by John Martin, was laid out with streets radiating from a central square in the shape of the Union Jack, and is small enough that many of its two dozen or so cellar doors sit within an easy walk or a short cycle of that square. The Martinborough Hotel, a handsome Victorian pub on the square, has anchored the village since the nineteenth century. Harvest runs through March and April, when the valley is genuinely busy with picking crews rather than tourists. Outside the vines, the wider Wairarapa holds farmland and small rural towns, reached from Wellington over a winding hill road that can slow in poor weather.

The Wairarapa, about an hour north-east of Wellington over the Rimutaka Range, Martinborough, Wellington, New Zealand

Cellar doors across Martinborough vary by producer - most of the larger, better-known wineries open daily through the warmer months, roughly 11am to 4 or 5pm, while several smaller, boutique operations pour by appointment only, especially outside summer and the harvest season. The village square's cafes and the Martinborough Hotel keep fairly standard daytime and evening hours, with some reducing on quiet winter weekdays. The Rimutaka Hill Road, the main route back to Wellington, is open at all hours but can be slow in poor weather and occasionally closes briefly for ice, snow or crash clearance in winter.

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