Exploring the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival

The longest-running food and wine festival returned this year with a festival-first – pop-up restaurants. 

Speckled amongst the wine and food tents, Gramado’s Restaurant and Bar served dishes incorporating its signature Brazilian flavours, paired with Giesen wines and the famous Franks Oyster Bar and Eatery shucked oysters many ways. Each chef had to carefully consider how to showcase their popular dishes, and serve quickly so guests don’t have to wait, and en masse to feed the thousands that turn up for this epic event each year.

It was a hit, as were the other elements that make this festival one of the highlights for passionate food and wine enthusiasts who turn up from all around the country to celebrate the best that this premium region has to offer.

The Marlborough Wine and Food Festival is a fantastic day event. Held at Renwick Domain, it is appropriately in the heart of wine country, surrounded by former original vineyard sites and nestled amongst some of the most prolific winemakers.

We flew down on Saturday morning and the plane from Auckland to Blenheim was full of like-minded travellers looking forward to a day of wine tasting, food sampling, chef demonstrations and good music. 

In the culinary pavilion demonstrations by Sam Webb and Andy Hearnden, Matt Lambert and Michael Meredith were both inspirational and educational with plenty of good humour thrown in too. How can you not enjoy watching these masters of knives slice and dice produce and cook to perfection? They were personable and encouraged audience involvement offering plenty of opportunities to ask questions throughout.

To dive deeper into topics there were 50-minute masterclasses, which are ticketed and limited in numbers but well worth it. We attended the From the Mountains to the Sea which was a well-presented session featuring local premium wild-caught and sustainable foods from land and sea paired with lesser-known, full-bodied red wines. The other options were Wine and Cheese Pairing, Unlock Your Hidden Winemaker, and Méthode Marlborough Masterclass. 

It is an excellent event, and very well organised, you can see why many choose to make a weekend of it. The field provides plenty of space and dancing room as the afternoon and music progresses from easy morning vibes to upbeat early evening. Headliners Drax Project kept many dancing in the green. It helped that we had beautiful weather with brilliant blue skies and a slight breeze.

Marlborough is home to many of New Zealand’s top wineries and indeed spread around the field were 40 wine stalls, and 25 food stalls consider it the biggest wine tasting and farmers market you could possibly attend and would want to attend.

We stayed for the weekend in Blenheim, hosted by the lovely Marris family from Marisco Wines. The morning after the festival we walked amongst the vines into town and enjoyed a wander around the farmers market at the A&P grounds. What Blenheim lacks in population it sure makes up for in the quality of wine and produce.

Marisco Wines is best known for its popular Ned and Marisco ranges – the biggest-selling rosé in the country. They have a sister-brand called Leefield Station which is an exciting offering to the market. You won’t find Leefield Station in supermarkets, it has a very select offering of on-premise and off-premise locations.

Leefield Station is an iconic property in Marlborough spanning hundreds of hectares stretching from the flatlands to the hills alongside the Omaka River in the Waihopai Valley. The fertile land equally nourishes cattle, sheep, pigs and vines amongst native plants. Working with the land, not against it and creating a harmonious blend amongst viticulture and farming the dynamic result creates premium products across all categories. Yes, they can cohabit and do so successfully. Keep an eye out for the soon-to-be-released woollen products that are beautiful to touch and to the eye.

You might feel like the last thing you can do after a day at a wine festival is visit vineyards and go wine tasting so treat it as recce for your next visit to this beautiful and fertile part of our country.