January 20, 2026

Join us on Saturday January 31st for the 2026 Wine Race. Celebrating two of icons of the region; the Marlborough Sounds and Marlborough wine. The Wine race combines the exhilaration of yacht racing with the excitement of releasing a new vintage of Marlborough wines.

Each yacht carries a new release wine from a Marlborough winery, racing through the outer Queen Charlotte Sound to take out line honours at Resolution Bay. The event finishes ashore with prize-giving, a wine tasting and music.

This race was inspired by the traditional “Beaujolais Nouveau” where the first Beaujolais wines were transported from France to the UK. The early format of the Marlborough Wine Race, saw yachts sailing across the unpredictable Cook Strait to ‘release’ the new vintage wines into our capital city from the mainland.

WineWorks has been the headline supporter of this event for many years – we hope you can enter your latest release wines and come and join us for the day.

Full event information is available at waikawaboatingclub.co.nz or contact events@waikawaboatingclub.co.nz