After more than 40 years of celebrating Marlborough wine, food, people and place, we’ve made the difficult decision to put the next Marlborough Wine & Food Festival on hold.

It’s not a decision we’ve made lightly.

The festival has grown alongside Marlborough’s wine industry since 1985, when the region had just four wine companies. Over the years, it has become a much-loved celebration of our region and an important part of the Marlborough summer.

We’re proud of the event we’ve built and incredibly grateful to the wineries, food businesses, performers, community groups, volunteers, sponsors and, of course, the thousands of people who have joined us over the years.

But delivering an event of this scale takes significant investment, time and resources. As a small, member-focused organisation, Wine Marlborough needs to consider where we can best put those resources to support Marlborough’s wine companies and grape growers.

More than 80% of Marlborough wine is exported beyond New Zealand, so protecting and strengthening the reputation of our wine region is an important part of that work.

This is why we are hitting pause.

This gives us an opportunity to step back and consider what comes next, while putting energy into other initiatives that raise the profile of our extraordinary wine region.