Gobsmackingly Good Wine

“Martinborough, at the bottom of the North Island, is [Marlborough’s] alter ego: small, intimate, friendly and with gobsmackingly good vino,” Ian Verrender, business columnist, writes in The Age. “Marlborough produces the bulk of New Zealand’s wines; Martinborough picks up the bulk of the medals. Accounting for just 1 per cent of New Zealand production, Martinborough produces superb and distinctive sauvignon blancs, exceptionally good chardonnays and a sprinkling of wonderful pinot gris. But the region’s specialty is that fickle prince of wine, pinot noir. The world’s most temperamental vine, pinot noir is suited to just a handful of regions throughout the world – Burgundy in France is its spiritual home – and Martinborough happens to be one of those places.”