Trail Snapshot
Trail:
Up to approximately 24 km of paved road riding. Can be customized for more or less distance.Difficulty:
Easy/NoviceOutdoor Travels Rating:
4 bikes out of 5. Great food and over 30 great wineries to visit along a relatively flat circuit ripe with beautiful scenery and grapes- what could be better?Thumbs Up and Down
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Nuts & Bolts
Location:
Blenheim/Renwick, New Zealand (south Island)Admission:
Free if you go on your own. Some wineries charge a small fee for tastings. Tours obviously have a small cost associated with them.Lodging, Rentals & Misc.
Bike Rental:
Wine Tours By Bike - They provide decent well-maintained touring bikes, helmets, wine panniers, a bottle of water, winery map and sage advice. Pick-up is available from your accommodation. Jane and Ray Adams, 106 Jeffries Road, RD3, Blenheim, New Zealand Phone: +64 3 5729951 Fax : +64 3 5729940 WebsiteLodging:
Antares Homestead – Very nice lodging owned by the Wine Tours By Bike owners Jane and Ray. Although not reviewed this trip, we did see their homestead and can say it’s very nice for the money. Use same contact information above.Maps Links and Photos
Maps and Links:
Photos:
Lots of great photos to give you a good idea of what riding here is like!
Marlborough Wine Bike TourKelli adjusting her bike at Wine Tours By Bike
A close up of one of many vineyards
Virginia serves us tasty samples
One of our bikes at Cloudy Bay
Horses along the road take a good look at us
Another beautiful vineyard photo
Kelli turning into Fromm Winery
An interesting dog in the parking lot
Another gorgeous view from the tower
Ray picks us up in the rain - Thanks!
Biking
Marlborough Wine Tour
Blenheim/Renwick, New Zealand
Great food, more great wineries than one could visit in a day - and - oh yeah, you'll ride a bike around too!
Dana Farnsworth, Outdoor Travels
Perhaps not a true bicycling adventure in the purest sense of the form, the Marlborough Wine Trail by bicycle is truly a fun and interesting experience for lovers of biking and fine wine. There’s really no reason not to bike a route that features over 30 world-class wineries clustered in a very manageable 23.5km circuit.
There are a few transportation choices, but obviously only one good one, to safely maneuver through this wonderland for winos: Cram yourself in a tour bus full of strangers, drive yourself and persuade a travel mate to be a designated driver, spit out all the wine you taste (a crime in my opinion), or rent a bicycle equipped with special wine panniers, grab a map, get the insider scoop and pedal from winery to winery to winery to winery. Since I really like wine and love to bicycle, my choice was obvious.
Located in the northern part of the southern island of New Zealand, the Wairau Valley encompasses the cool-climate Marlborough wine region. The provincial capital Blenheim and the tiny neighboring town of Renwick, located in the lower valley enjoy sunny weather and a temperate climate that’s perfect for creating world famous Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay wines. Over 30 wineries can be explored along light-traveled rural roads within a 10 km radius of Blenheim. My wife Kelli and I chose Wine Tours By Bike, located in Renwick to provide us with bikes and needed information.
Arriving at Wine Tours By Bike, we were greeted by the owner Ray and his two plump Labrador retrievers Ronnie and Reggie. He provided us with decent touring bikes, a useful map, water, directions and insider advice pertaining to which wineries we should stop at and which to avoid, have lunch at, etc. It was immediately obvious that Ray is familiar with the wine trail, as our bikes were outfitted with special made 4-pack panniers! My wife Kelli and I each had the capacity to comfortably tote 4 bottles of New Zealands finest vino around! This was going to be fun! My first and really only biking challenge arrived even before I could get out of Ray’s driveway. I had to dodge Ronnie, or was it Reggie, who seemed to have a taste for petroleum product. Shadowing me like a furry wingman during my test ride, he suddenly began chewing on my pedals as they went round and round. Getting dizzy or perhaps failing to get a good chewing on the revolving target, he then attempted to eat my front tire as I cruised around testing my seat height. With dogs at bay, Kelli and I set off down Jeffries Road with empty panniers on our bikes and a taste for wine in our palettes.
Ray had mapped out a nice circuit that would take us to the east on Rapaura Road, south on Giffords Road, west on Old Renwick Road continuing on Route 6 to Godfrey Road (south), west on Dog Point Road, North onto Hawkesbury Road, Crossing onto 6 North and then back east on Rapaura Road to Jeffries. Although it sounds a bit complicated, this 23 km or so route is actually quite easy to navigate with a map and would take us past more wineries than we could possibly imagine experiencing. As there are numerous wineries in such close proximity of each other, Ray can customize rides of any distance and time frame. If your biking legs aren’t in the best of shape, you could ride as little as a few kilometers and still visit at least a half dozen wineries.
As we began our ride and settled into our bikes we marveled at the surrounding landscape. Marlborough valley is a beautiful sight in fall - the vine’s leaves are changing color; bright green and yellow blankets arranged in tidy rows are framed by mist covered mountains across all horizons.
Ray’s insider information proved to be very helpful when trying to pick the best wineries to go to. We chose to pedal by the “not very nice to bikers”, “their wine isn’t up to par with the rest”, “charges a high price for a sample board”, and any other wineries that had negatives Ray had experienced. There are literally just too many wineries along this route to stop at every one – so why not stop at the very best and friendliest? Our stops included: The very friendly Rapaura Vinters, Cloudy Bay, quaint Fromm, gorgeous Highfield Estate, and the interesting Grove Mill. Later we also stopped at Mud House too.
The pedaling is easy, as the route is very flat. Only a few roads have more than a few cars traveling them and only one or two of those could be considered busy. Occasional wide shoulders and courteous drivers that are used to seeing tourists on bicycles are all plusses of this route.
Rapaura Vinters Limited got our tour started right! We rode away with two bottles in our panniers! After tasty visits to Cloudy Bay and then Fromm, we headed towards our recommended lunch stop, Highfield Estates. Just a few wineries serve food, and even fewer if any, do a better job, than Highfield does. Sitting on top of one of the few small foothills in the valley, the castle-like main building looks out over fields of its grapes. Their wines, as well as our lunch were superb. Before leaving, make sure to climb the two stories up their tower, which has marvelous panoramic views of the region.
With a belly full of wine and food, we eased our way back into riding. Next stop for us was Grove Mill. Grove Mill has great tasting facilities that notably included an aroma area, where you can sample individual aromatic elements that can be found in wine – very interesting and informative.
Remounting our bikes (now a bit heavier sporting around six or seven bottles of wine) we headed west onto Route 6/63 just as it began to rain (it seems to do this with great frequency in New Zealand). Making a decision not to get drench, we rode back to Grove Mill and exercised a valuable benefit/feature of our Wine Tours By Bike – we called Ray for a pick-up! If a rider becomes too tired, lost, wet, inebriated or any combination thereof, he is more than happy to pick them up. We had covered approximately half of our route before hopping in the car for a ride back. It was a little disappointing not to cover the whole route, but Kelli and I both agreed that we were happier dry and that we already had a great time. After we turned in our bikes and headed out, we made one last stop at the Mud House winery, right around the corner from Wine Tours By Bike.
If all this riding and tasting worked up an appetite for dinner, you would be hard pressed to find a quainter pub than the Cork and Keg in Renwick, if you enjoy a true English country pub experience. Four natural “Renwick” beers and dry cider are made specifically for the Cork and Keg. Big wood beams, tasty pub fare, low ceilings and a big fireplace all add to a warm ambiance that caps off a great day of gears and grapes and grub.
Wineries Visited
Rapaura Vinters Limited: Makers of Goldwater Estate, Babich and Twin Islands labels. Corner of Rapaura Road and Jacksons Road, Renwick. Phone: 03 572 8393Cloudy Bay: Marlborough's, and probably New Zealand's, most famous winery. Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir and Late Harvest Riesling wines. For a special treat, try their sparkling Pelorus wine. PO Box 376, BLENHEIM, phone: +64 3 5209140, fax: +64 3 5209040
Fromm Winery: Fromm is unusual in that it specialises in reds, rather than the more common sauvignon blancs, chardonnays and rieslings. In fact, the home vineyard is planted only in red varieties and Gewürztraminer. While a relatively new winery, Fromm wines have met with success and rank with the best wines of the region. Hätsch Kalberer, Godfrey Road RD 2, BLENHEIM, phone: +64 3 5729355, fax: +64 3 5729366.
Highfield Estate: Great food and delicious wine in a castle-like building open 7 days a week. Brookby Road, RD2, Blenheim Phone: 64 (3) 572 9244
Grove Mill: Top of the range wines are designated with the "Grove Mill Marlborough" label, and drink now wines branded with the "Sanctuary Marlborough" label and with the "Frog Haven Marlborough" label. Grove Mill was the first winery to plant Pinot Gris in Marlborough and to produce a Marlborough Pinot Gris. The current Grove Mill range comprises Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Merlot and Pinot Noir. Rob White , PO Box 67, Renwick, BLENHEIM, phone: +64 3 5728200, fax: +64 3 5728211.
Mud House: The vineyard is planted in Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. John & Jennifer Joslin, PO Box 65, Renwick, BLENHEIM, phone: +64 3 5729490, fax: +64 3 5729491.
