The good oil
MARTINBOROUGH’S TASTIEST businesses take their names from the landscape.
Wine producer Nga Waka’s name nods to the Canoes of Kupe, three hills which lie like upturned waka behind the little market town. Te Kairanga’s John Martin Reserve pinot noir is named for the founder of the little square wine town. Vineyard Escarpment reflects the alluvial gravel terraces which create such terrific terroir.
And Parehua, the Maori word for that escarpment, is the Peppers’ lodge named for its elevated west-facing site on the edge of the town’s river-terrace plinth.
Just an hour from Wellington but a world away, Peppers Parehua has become a bolthole of private luxury and a base for country pursuits. With an eventfilled calender bringing the palate-curious to town, the lodge’s cosy cottages, restaurant and function rooms make a natural home for weekenders, wedding parties and business conferences.
The four cottages and two villas are rural luxe – dark wood and greige with sumptuous cushioned couches, bedspreads, mohair throws and smart-design fabrics and lamps – and with full kitchen, vast bathroom and gas jetmaster fire, could happily accommodate, for instance, a pair of new parents and a prince. But so discreet and cleverly landscaped is the estate that it’s hard to believe we’re not the only ones here.
The first frosty midwinter morning, we wake to the sun pouring through the picture window and nip on to the veranda to soak in 40-degree mineral water in a Japanese red cedar tub.
With thick white icing on the Tararua Range over the riverflats, it’s the best spot to plan your day.
We’re in Martinborough for the inaugural Olive Harvest Festival, a weekend of tastings, masterclasses and olive grove tours that will surely become a winter solstice staple on the calendar. While most harvest festivals are held in the mellow light of autumn, the olive harvest normally coincides with the shortest day of the year.
That might tempt townies to tour the area in the upholstered comfort of their cars. But blue skies, sunshine and a yen for some fresh country air convince us to fling a leg over Parehua’s fattyred cruising bikes and pedal off to town.
Traffic is seriously rural on a Sunday morning – just one car moves through Martinborough’s symmetry of streets and we slalomdown the diagonal Texas and Kansas streets, crossing Strasbourg and Venice, and wonder if there is some obscure pattern to this global grab bag of placenames.
‘‘Simply a roll-call of the places John Martin had visited,’’ says new local Jared Gulian, whose book Moon Over Martinborough hit No 4 in the bestseller list the day of the festival.
We’ve come to hear him read from his book, and the cosy gathering at the Martinborough Wine Centre just off the town square is the best introduction to village life. Many of the town’s famous pinot growers show off their wines here, tasting taps and maps and books comprise the town’s cultural hub. Antique shops and art galleries sit between station agents and real estate firms, cafes and the historic Martinborough Hotel.
Over fresh coffee and homebaking, Gulian reads us his stories of a Michigan city slicker falling for the Wairarapa countryside. The charming tone of his stories comes from the ‘‘Gosh, really?’’ surprises at the differences between the attitudes of urban America and rural New Zealand.
‘‘CJ and I wondered, as a gay couple, whether we might run into small-town prejudice,’’ says Jared, ‘‘and when we moved in, our neighbours were very worried.
‘‘But it wasn’t because we were gay, it was because we didn’t have a tractor.’’
Tractors look positively oldschool beside the technology we encounter in the olive groves. We’ve cycled 20 minutes from the town square past the golf course