Take a Walk on the Wine Side

‘A good pinot noir,’ says wine-maker Larry McKenna, ‘is like an orgasm: it’s hard to describe but you know when you’ve had one.’

And if anyone should know – about pinot noir, at least – it’s Larry McKenna. In New Zealand he has been dubbed ‘the King of Pinot Noir’ and has won so many medals for his favourite grape that he has stopped entering competitions, but he still enters, and wins, international wine challenges.

Although he was born in Adelaide, Larry moved to Martinborough in the south of the North Island in the mid 1980’s and joined Martinborough Vineyard, one of the first to be established in the surprising surrounds of Martinborough. To say that Martinborough was sleepy back then is to imply that it was ever actually awake. Even today, if you arrive as I did late on a Sunday afternoon, you might wonder if you’ve come to the right place. Is this really one of the great centres of New Zealand wine‑making? I felt I’d walked into the opening scenes of The Last Picture Show, the archetypal small town where the cinema is about to close down, except Martinborough doesn’t have a cinema to begin with. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see tumbleweeds blowing down the street.

Yet Martinborough buzzes all weekend, mostly with visitors from Wellington, an hour or so to the south. They descend in their droves, drive round the vineyards, throw open their boots and go home with some of the best wines in the world.

Mike Laven, who owns the Martinborough Hotel, is trying to persuade them to stay a little longer, as wine tourism is now big business in New Zealand. Mike is from England via Hong Kong, and with his Martinborough wife Sally bought the hotel in 1995. They have turned it into a stunningly beautiful boutique hotel, all wood panelling and antiques, though when they acquired it everyone thought they must be mad, as it had a less than savoury reputation.

‘When I went to see one of the local bank managers to arrange finance,’ Mike tells me over a glass of Martinborough pinot gris, ‘she told me that the last time she’d been in here she’d been beaten up. It was a run-down dive of a bar, but it’s a great old building and we felt it had potential. By the mid-1990’s Martinborough had established itself in the wine industry, people were starting to visit, but there was nowhere decent for them to stay.’

To give his hotel residents something to do – as once you’ve walked round the main square and inspected the dozen or so shops, there is not a lot more to Martinborough – Mike Laven has devised a Vineyard Walk. What had brought me here in the first place was one quirky fact: there are a dozen vineyards within easy walking distance of the town centre. Never mind what Frank Sinatra croons, that’s my kinda town. The exact number you can reach on foot depends on what you regard as walking distance. Personally, if there is a vineyard with a tasting room at the end of it, my walking distance – and speed – increases considerably. When Mike suggested I join him the next morning to test out the route of his new walk, while the map and directions were still being drawn up, he didn’t need to ask twice.

‘It’s about four miles,’ Mike told me, ‘and is just for hotel guests. I’ve arranged it with the vineyard owners, and they don’t mind small numbers of people actually walking through their land. It goes through two award-winning vineyards, which will certainly be known to wine lovers in Britain: the Palliser Estate and the Martinborough Vineyard.’

It was mid-October, and in the night the sound of helicopters was heard, hovering over the vines to stop Jack Frost nipping at the buds. It might seem an enormous expense, but not as enormous as losing your entire crop of grapes. But by 9am in the morning the sky was deep blue, and the sun was turning the chill of the night into a wonderfully warm day.

Martinborough is set in a small valley, and is typical of the landscape changes that have been happening in New Zealand in the last few decades because of the upsurge in the wine industry. Land that had barely been suitable for grazing turned out to be perfect for growing grapes. New Zealand is not exactly short of sheep, so it’s no great hardship to farmers to lease or sell suitable land to vineyards. Some have retired on the proceeds, and in many cases what was a dying farm has turned into the birth of a vineyard.

We turn off the road and into a field where rows of vines disappear to the horizon. ‘I think the walk will appeal to people no matter what the season,’ Mike tells me. ‘There is something about rows of vines, especially of course if you’re a wine-lover, that is so visually appealing, even now, when the first green shoots are only starting to show. Imagine the sight of these vines when they are weighed down with grapes and the sun’s shining.’

We stroll along by the river for a while, to a grassy clearing near a line of trees, where we pause to enjoy the view. ‘If you time the walk right,’ says Mike, ‘you can bring a picnic lunch, do some tastings, buy a couple of bottles at the cellar door, and settle down and have lunch by the river. Wouldn’t that be perfect?’ As close as it gets, I have to agree.

When we reach the Martinborough Vineyard, Larry McKenna is busy tasting the wine maturing in the barrels. ‘Last year’s pinot noir was good,’ Larry says with great enthusiasm. ‘In fact I did say it was the best I’ve ever made, but just taste this year’s… I think this’ll be even better.’

I take a sip and nod appreciatively. I don’t know much about good wine, but I know when I’ve had one. To me it seems that Larry McKenna has come good again. So to speak.