Martinborough is a small South Wairarapa town where the cellar doors sit on the gravel terrace around Memorial Square. Most of them are a few kilometres apart on quiet roads, which is why a bike is the classic way to spend a day here. People search for Martinborough when they want Pinot Noir, a weekend from Wellington, or a village they can actually ride around.
Green Jersey is on Kitchener Street, a short roll from the Square. Martinborough bike hire covers step-through bikes, e-bikes, tandems and multi-seat bikes for families and groups. Hires start from 9:30am and come back the same day, with roadside assistance and complimentary collection of the wine you buy so you are not riding home with bottles on the rack.
| Where | South Wairarapa, about 1 hour 15 minutes from Wellington |
|---|---|
| Known for | Pinot Noir on the Martinborough Terrace |
| Best way around | Bike. Most cellar doors are within a few kilometres of the Square |
| Easy loop | Three or four doors and a vineyard lunch, half a day |
| Bike hire | Green Jersey, 16 Kitchener Street, from 9:30am |
| Stay | Square hotel, vineyard villas, lodge, holiday park |
| Busy times | Weekends, summer, and Toast Martinborough in November |
This is the ride the hire bikes are built for: wide streets, short hops between gates, and enough time at each door to sit down.
Pick where you are staying, tick the cellar doors you want, and we will put them in ride order with rough timings. It is a planning sketch for quiet local roads, not a turn-by-turn navigation track. Doors without a map pin are still listed below — add those by hand.
Tick a few cellar doors, or use “Suggest a loop”, and the route will show here.
These are the doors in and around the village. The Wairarapa Wine cellar door guide is the regional list if a small producer has changed days since this page was updated. Gladstone and Masterton wineries are a drive away, so they are not on this village loop.
96 Kitchener Street
Hours: Daily. Recent hours 11am–4pm in cooler months, extending toward 5pm in busier seasons
Large terrace cellar door and kitchen on the north side of the village. Book a tasting on busy weekends; glasses and lunch are the easier walk-in.
14 Puruatanga Road
Hours: Wine shop daily 10am–4pm. Seated tastings by appointment, Monday–Saturday at 11am and 2pm
One of the original Martinborough Pinot Noir estates. The shop can be a quick stop; the seated tasting needs a booking.
42 Puruatanga Road
Hours: Cellar door and emporium daily 11am–4:30pm. Lunch from 12pm, dinner from 5:30pm. Dining bookings essential
Cellar door, preserves shop and restaurant, with colonial-house accommodation if you want to stay among the vines.
45 Omarere Road
Hours: Monday–Friday 12pm–4:30pm, Saturday 11am–5pm, Sunday 11am–4pm
Small cellar door a few minutes east of Puruatanga Road, with tastings and platters.
5 Huangarua Road, corner of Princess Street
Hours: Monday and Thursday 11am–3pm, Friday and Sunday 11am–4pm, Saturday 11am–5pm. Book for groups of 6 or more
Cellar door, vineyard kitchen and villas. A natural lunch stop on a ride around the northern terrace.
57 Cambridge Road, tasting room signed on Huangarua Road
Hours: Often 11am–3pm. Winter hours have been Monday–Thursday by appointment and Friday–Sunday 11am–3pm. Confirm before you ride out
Organic estate with a small tasting room. Large groups should enquire. Platters or a food truck when they are trading.
91 Puruatanga Road
Hours: Daily 11am–4pm. Groups over 10 should call ahead
A calm tasting room further along Puruatanga Road. A small tasting fee is refunded if you buy wine.
133 Puruatanga Road
Hours: Lunch and tastings Wednesday–Sunday 11am–4pm. Dinner Friday and Saturday until 8pm
The eastern end of the easy Puruatanga loop, with lawn space and a kitchen. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
1 Martins Road
Hours: Open seven days. Tuesday–Wednesday 11:30am–3pm, other days from 11:30am, Saturday through to 6pm
Vineyard lunch matched to their own wines, on Martins Road at the south-east edge of the terrace.
275 Te Muna Road
Hours: Friday–Saturday 10am–3pm, bookings essential. Monday–Thursday one seated tasting at 11am by appointment. Not open Sunday
A longer ride south of the village, about 15–20 minutes by bike from the Square. Allow an hour for the tasting and do not treat it as a quick add-on.
89 Martins Road
Hours: Monday–Thursday 12pm–4pm, Friday 12pm–6pm, Saturday 11am–6pm, Sunday 11am–4pm
Te Kairanga, Martinborough Vineyard and Lighthouse Gin in one tasting room, with platters and a restaurant. Guided tastings start on the hour.
Martinborough
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 10am–4pm. Roving pizza Thursday–Saturday 12pm–3pm. Book guided tastings
Guided tastings of current releases, with walk-in tastings when the team can fit you in. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Martinborough
Hours: Saturday and Sunday 11am–4pm
Weekend tastings with the family who make the wine. A Saturday or Sunday stop rather than a midweek one.
Dry River flats, south of Martinborough
Hours: Friday–Sunday 11am–5pm, or midweek by appointment. Platters
Single-vineyard Pinot Noir, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc, with a platter if you want to stay longer.
Dry River terrace, Martinborough
Hours: Saturday and Sunday 11am–5pm. Bookings encouraged
Quiet weekend tastings with a view toward the Remutaka and Tararua ranges.
Martinborough
Hours: Saturday and Sunday, tastings by appointment
Seated tastings with the winemakers. This is an appointment, not a drop-in.
Ohio Street
Hours: Friday–Sunday 3pm–7pm at Martinborough Brewery
Small-batch wines poured at the brewery. A late-afternoon stop after the cellar doors, with beer on site.
John Martin founded the town in 1880 after a world trip in 1875 on the steamship Taranaki. The street plan is his souvenir: roads radiate off Memorial Square in the shape of a Union Jack. Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Cork, Naples and Strasbourg are places from that trip. During the First World War some German-sounding names were replaced with British generals — Kitchener, Jellicoe, French and Roberts — which is why the bike-hire street does not match the rest of the pattern.
The wine came a century later. From about 1980, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc went in on the terrace gravels after research treated the climate and soils as a Burgundy match. The easy riding is on that terrace: Nelsons, Huangarua, Puruatanga and Martins Roads, roughly 4km from end to end. That is the “golden terrace” locals still use as the boundary of a sensible cellar-door day.
The Square is still the practical centre. The Martinborough Museum is in the old library building, open weekends and public holidays, and every day from 27 December to 6 February. The Waihinga Centre on Texas Street has the library and visitor information. War memorial gates on the Square mark the Boer War, the First World War and the Second World War in three different styles of ironwork — worth two minutes if you are locking the bikes anyway.
Three tastings and a long lunch is a better day than six rushed flights. Use the planner above, then book the bikes if you are not bringing your own. E-bikes help if you want Escarpment on Te Muna Road in the same day as the terrace.
The Martinborough Hotel faces the Square. Margrain, Luna, Tirohana, Moy Hall, Palliser and The Runholder all feed people as well as pouring wine. Book lunch on a Saturday. Bakeries and cafes around the Square cover the gap if you are riding through at 10am.
Olivo presses olive oil on the edge of town. The grove and tasting room are a weekend visit for most of the year, and daily through December and January. It is the right stop if someone in the group is done with Pinot.
Martinborough Brewery is on Ohio Street, near the Square, and The Good Way pours its wines there on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Lighthouse Gin is tasted at The Runholder with Te Kairanga and Martinborough Vineyard.
Shops, the museum and the memorial gates fill an hour without a tasting fee. The Martinborough Fair, when it runs, is traditionally the first Saturday in February and the first Saturday in March — confirm the current dates before you plan the weekend around it.
The festival is usually in November and it fills every bed in town. It is a ticketed cellar-door day, not a normal ride. If you are visiting that weekend, book accommodation first and check whether the doors you want are inside the festival or trading as usual.
Stay in the village if the plan is cellar doors. The coast and the Remutaka hill are easy day trips from here; they are less convenient as a base if you want to walk to dinner.
10–12 Memorial Square
On the Square, so dinner and the first coffee do not need a car. Select it as your start in the day planner.
Western side of the village
Cabins and campsites a short ride from Palliser Estate and the Square.
5 Huangarua Road
Self-contained villas on the vineyard, each with a balcony over the vines. Use Margrain as your start point in the day planner.
42 Puruatanga Road
Group stay for the estate, from a couple up to a larger house booking, with packages that can include meals. Start the planner at Tirohana.
Puruatanga Road
A two-bedroom vineyard house a short walk from the Ata Rangi cellar door and an easy stroll into the Square. Enquire direct for dates.
Martinborough
Lodge-style rooms and villas on the edge of the village, useful if you want a pool and a restaurant on site as well as the cellar doors.
For the wider list of B&Bs and cottages, Destination Wairarapa keeps the current stay directory.
Martinborough is also the Wairarapa base for two longer days. Neither one is a substitute for the cellar-door loop — they are what you do with a second day.
The full Remutaka Cycle Trail is a 122km Great Ride and it is not an easy add-on to a wine morning. From Martinborough, the day that suits most people is the Remutaka Rail Trail: tunnels, bush and the Siberia Gully bridge, with a shuttle back. Read the Remutaka Cycle Trail guide for the sections and grades, or go straight to the one-day Rail Trail ride.
South of Martinborough the road runs to Lake Ferry, the Putangirua Pinnacles, Ngawi and the Cape Palliser lighthouse. It is a wild coast day — seals, a fishing village and a climb to the light — and it is best as a guided ride rather than a leftover afternoon after tastings. See the Cape Palliser day ride.
You do not need a road bike. The terrace is flat, the gates are close, and the useful features are a basket or rack, a comfortable seat, and someone to collect the wine. Families often take a tandem or a multi-seat bike. E-bikes earn their keep if the group has mixed fitness or you want Te Muna Road in the same day.
See Martinborough bike hire for the current bikes and prices, or contact Green Jersey if you are booking a group.
Most people come for the cellar doors, which sit a short walk or bike ride from Memorial Square. Add lunch at a vineyard, a look around the Square and museum, olive oil at Olivo, beer at Martinborough Brewery, and — if you have another day — the Remutaka Rail Trail or a guided ride to Cape Palliser.
Yes. The village streets are quiet and flat, and the main terrace roads — Puruatanga, Huangarua, Princess and Martins — join the Square in a few kilometres. A relaxed loop of three or four cellar doors is a half day on a bike. Te Muna Road, where Escarpment is, is a longer ride south of town.
Martinborough is in the South Wairarapa, about an hour and a quarter by car from Wellington via the Remutaka Hill. It works as a day trip, and it is an easy overnight if you want dinner and a second cellar-door morning.
Pinot Noir. The Martinborough Terrace gravels were planted from about 1980 after local research likened the climate and soils to Burgundy. You will also find Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and a growing set of small-batch wines.
Some do. Ata Rangi seated tastings, Escarpment, Big Sky, Dry River and Oraterra are appointment tastings. Palliser, Poppies, Margrain and Luna are easier to walk into, but weekends and groups should still book. Hours change with the season, so check the winery site on the day.
The Martinborough Hotel is on Memorial Square. Margrain and Tirohana have vineyard accommodation, Ata Rangi lets McCrone House, and Peppers Parehua is a lodge on the edge of the village. There is also a holiday park west of the Square. Book early for Toast Martinborough weekend and summer Saturdays.
Margrain, Luna Estate, Tirohana, Moy Hall and Palliser all serve food with the wine, and The Runholder has platters and a restaurant. The Square is the backup if you would rather eat in town between rides.
Yes, if you keep the tasting list short. The Square, a bakery stop and one or two cellar doors with lawn space is plenty. Green Jersey hires tandems and multi-seat bikes so not everyone has to ride their own.
Toast Martinborough is the region’s main wine festival and is usually held in November. Accommodation sells out. Check the current date before you book, and do not plan a normal cellar-door ride on festival day unless you have a ticket.
Yes. Martinborough bike hire includes complimentary collection of bottles you buy while you are out, so you are not riding back to Kitchener Street with a case on the rack. Hires start from 9:30am and return the same day.
Tell us the day, how many riders, and whether you want bikes only or a hand with the plan. We are at 16 Kitchener Street.