For 2022 the World Wine Travel (#WorldWineTravel) group of bloggers are virtually exploring wine regions in Australia and New Zealand.

We wrapped up an 8 month exploration of Australian Wine in August. From September through the end of 2022, we’ll be exploring wines regions in New Zealand.

About New Zealand Wine

New Zealand is a remote island nation in the Pacific Ocean, two thousand kilometers (1,300 miles) coast-to-coast, southeast of Australia. Spread across two main islands, New Zealand has 10 major wine-growing regions spread across the North and South Islands explains WineSearcher.com.

New Zealand is relatively new to winemaking. The first recorded vine plantings were in 1819 by English missionary Samuel Marsden in the Bay of Islands. Nonetheless, it has achieved remarkable success and a great international reputation.

Its long growing season and cool maritime climate make ideal conditions for grape growing and producing distinctive, premium-quality wines.

The country’s calling card is its distinctive style of Sauvignon Blanc.  Almost 1 in 5 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc produced worldwide hail from New Zealand. “New Zealand Pinot Noir also has a strong international reputation and is the country’s second-most exported wine after Sauvignon Blanc. Pinot Noir relishes cool temperatures and low rainfall, so performs particularly well in the Martinborough and Central Otago regions” explains the very useful New Zealand Wine website.

What’s interesting is New Zealand’s unparalleled commitment to sustainability. To date, 96% of New Zealand’s vineyard producing area is Sustainable Winegrowing NZ certified (“SWNZ), and 10% of New Zealand wineries now hold Organic Certification (“OWNZ”). This is no small feat, given organic farming is much more challenging in a cool climate.

Here’s a nice overview of New Zealand Wine.

Martinborough Wine Region

Our first stop in New Zealand is Martinborough! It is located in the southern part of New Zealand’s North Island about 55 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of the captial, Wellington. It is one of the three main subregions of the greater Wairarapa wine region, where the first Pinot Noir vines were planted in 1883.

Martinborough itself is a small picturesque town. Its surrounding grape growing region is home to some of New Zealand’s most highly respected boutique wineries. Its cool climate and excellent soils are perfect for the production of balanced, elegant wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The town was established in the 1800s as a service post for the surrounding farmland, but wasn’t discovered as a prime site for viticulture until the 1970s. In 1978, a scientific report compared the climate of the region with that of Burgundy in France, and a few pioneering vignerons began to buy land around Martinborough and plant it with vines.

Today, the bustling township has several dozen wineries in its vicinity, and wine and wine tourism are major contributors to the local economy. The annual Toast Martinborough wine festival attracts around 10,000 visitors to the town every November according to WineSearcher.

Join Us!

How to join with a blog article: Send me an email (martindredmond@gmail.com) sharing your interest in participating. Please include blog url and title, Twitter handle, and any other social media details. For those in our Facebook group, post your details as a reply to the invitation post.

Send your post title to me by Monday, September 19th, 2022 by the end of day to be included in the preview post. Your title should include the “#WorldWineTravel” hashtag added to the end of the title.

Include links to the other #WorldWineTravel participants in your post, and a description of the event. We’ll provide the HTML code you can easily put in your initial post, which will link to people’s general blog url.

Publish your post between Friday September 23rd, 2022 and 8:00 a.m. ET on Saturday, September 24th.

Whether you post or not, we would love you to join our Twitter chat Saturday, September 24th, 2022 at 10am CDT. Just use the #WorldWineTravel hashtag so we see your tweets.

Once all the posts are live, we will send updated code so you can update your article with the permanent links to everyone’s #WorldWineTravel posts.

Get social! After the posts go live, please visit your fellow bloggers posts’ to comment and share. We have a Facebook group for participating bloggers to connect and share, too.

Preview

Here’s a preview of what our bloggers will be sharing:

• Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla will be serving up Chicken Salad, Calamarata Pasta, and the 2020 Craggy Range “Te Muna Road” Sauvignon Blanc
• Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm is Saying Farewell to Summer with a Craggy Range Sauvignon Blanc
• Terri of Our Good Life is sharing Garlic Parmesan Baked Eggplant with an Astrolabe Province Sauvignon Blanc.
• Here at ENOFYLZ Wine BlogI’ll be pairing Ata Rangi Pinot Noir Crimson + Smoked Portobello Mushroom Burgers #WorldWineTravel

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