Chapter 01: Starting the Journey

There’s a fault line running through New Zealand. We packed a Land Rover and drove all of it.

Twelve months. Eight chapters. One Land Rover, loaded with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, travelling from the winery gates to the coast to the top of the mountain. This is Alpine Rift country, and we’re going to show you all of it.

Chapter 01 starts where the wine does. First light over the Wairau Valley, frost still on the rows, the keys in the Rover and everything ahead of us. The fruit for Alpine Rift grows here, on the fault line that gives the wine its name, where cool nights and long days build the citrus and cut that Marlborough is famous for.

Then we point the nose south and go: down the coast with the Pacific on our left, into the cold water at Mangamaunu, crayfish at a roadside caravan, the long golden road through Mackenzie Country, and up where the snow is. Eight chapters, one every month, ending with a fire on the beach and the last glass of the trip.

Pack light. Bring a jacket. Chase the Rift.