The world's finest Sauvignon Blanc — where Blenheim is the largest town in the Marlborough wine region at the northern tip of the South Island, the Wairau Valley's combination of strong sunshine, cool nights, stony free-draining soils, and maritime influence from the Marlborough Sounds produces a Sauvignon Blanc style (first defined by Cloudy Bay in 1985) that became the most imitated white wine style in the world in the following 40 years, 150 wineries are accessible by bicycle on flat valley roads, the Tuesday Marlborough Farmers' Market is the best produce market in the South Island, and the Queen Charlotte Track (a 71 km mountain-bike-and-hiking route through the Marlborough Sounds) starts 25 km away
Blenheim (32,000 city) is the largest town in the Marlborough region at the top of New Zealand's South Island — the administrative and commercial centre of the Marlborough wine district, which produces approximately 80% of New Zealand's total wine output and exports more wine by value than any other New Zealand region. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (first commercialised by Cloudy Bay, est. 1985) is the wine style most associated with New Zealand internationally. Blenheim sits in the Wairau Plain between the Richmond Range and the Wither Hills, directly sheltered from the Tasman Sea by the Marlb…
The Wairau Plain and the Marlborough Sounds were inhabited by Māori (principally the iwi of Ngāti Toa Rangatira and Te Ātiawa) before European contact. The Wairau Affray (June 17, 1843) was the first violent conflict between European settlers and Māori in the South Island — a land survey dispute between the New Zealand Company surveyors and local Ngāti Toa chiefs led to 22 deaths (6 Europeans and 4 Māori, including chief Te Rauparaha's son-in-law). The incident is also known as 'the Wairau Massacre' in some European-penned histories and as a justified defence of land rights in Māori oral trad…