This column is also published in the Martinborough Star, June 2026
There’s something to be said for Pinot Noir clones and New Zealand winemakers have had plenty to say about them over the past month with the seventh vintage release of Martinborough Vineyard’s top wine, Marie Zelie, made from 10/5 and Abel clones. Not only that but the announcement that the 2024 Nga Waka Lease Block Pinot Noir scooped four trophies, a gold medal and high score at the one of the world’s biggest wine competitions (IWSC), has had winemakers and some wine lovers discussing different ‘clones’ (variations of the same plant).
If clones might sound like the wine version of gobbledygook, think of them the way you would a sun ripened heritage tomato compared to a dilute, barely ripe one. The choice of good clones is one of many complex factors that go into creating great wines.
The launch of Marie Zelie last month was also a chance to hear from three winemakers who have helped shape and pioneer Pinot Noir at Martinborough Vineyards: the current Tom Turner, along with his predecessors Paul Mason and Larry McKenna.
“If we knew how much we didn’t know, we probably never would have started,” said McKenna, reflecting on his journey making wine in Martinborough’s early days. He arrived in 1986 to less than a handful of other wineries, all trying the stony ground here out for size.
“We have come a lot further a lot quicker than I ever could have imagined when I started.” Fast‑forward to now and both Mason and Turner echo McKenna’s aim: to highlight high‑quality Pinot Noir in this region and in New Zealand as a whole.
The launch of the new 2020 Martinborough Vineyards Marie Zelie Pinot Noir also offered a chance to reflect on the wine’s namesake, Marie Zelie, who was married to William Beetham and planted the region’s first vines near Masterton in the late 1800s. I have tasted a couple of those wines from 1905, which are left in the Beetham family homestead, Brancepeth. There was more than a flicker of life in one of them.
History often fades into the background but in this quirky story, one of the pioneers of Martinborough Vineyards, Derek Milne, happened to marry Marie Zelie’s great‑great‑niece, inadvertently picking up the thread she had left dangling.
The new 2020 Martinborough Vineyards Marie Zelie comes from a vintage that began with nerves and ended with relief. As harvest loomed, the country went into lockdown. Winemakers held their breath until the government declared wine an essential service. The sigh that followed could probably have blown a few caps off fermenters.
Review
2020 Marie Zelie Pinot Noir RRP $250
Meet the seventh vintage of Marie Zelie Pinot Noir from 2020 and made from 100% hand picked grapes, 14% whole bunch fermented with the remainder destemmed and hand‑sorted with 100% wild yeast fermentation.
The result is a silky textured Pinot Noir with a savoury aromas underpinning bright dark cherry aromas and earthy flavours on the mid palate, which is characteristic of Martinborough and the Wairarapa wine region. It is drinking superbly now and have further time to age, thanks to its structural weight and depth of flavour. This wine was aged for 13 months in French oak, 21% new, and bottled without fining or filtration.
