15 October 2021
The Wine Race is an annual event which has run 18 times, with the obvious break in 2020. The Wine Race is effectively a take on the Beaujolais Nouveau race to get the new year’s vintage from France to London in the fastest way possible. That event does it by any means available with the record time being set by a Harrier jet. We run this a bit more straight up and down with a yacht race from Marlborough to Wellington.
Marlborough’s best vineyards provide bottles of their latest vintage for the yachts to race in delivering them to Wellington restaurants. Then the public can book a table to get a taste of the new Marlborough wines.
The bottles are distributed to the boats in a blind draw. Each boat draws a number which allocates them a bottle, secretly placed and padlocked in a black box. Once in Wellington, the boxes are unlocked revealing the winning vineyards.
Wineworks Marlborough Wine Race 2018 results
Wineworks Marlborough Wine Race 2019 results