Wine festival to promote Marlb.

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 10

Wine festival to promote Marlb.

Marlborough will try to prove itself equal to any other tourist venue in New Zealand at its 1988 Marlborough, Wine and Food Festival today. “We will be proving to everyone that Marlborough is a gourmet province,” said the chairman of the festival committee, Mr Malcolm Aitken.

Many tourism companies didnot usually give Marlborough the opportunity to prove itself, he said.

Mr Aitken is expecting record numbers of overseas and New Zealand visitors to the fourth annual wine festival in Blenheim.

While last year’s crowd reached 5000, Mr Aken

said there were likely to be more than 8000 people this year. People in Auckland and Wellington had shown a "huge amount” of interest.

Some companies were organising buses for the first time to take people to the festival.

Visitors will include top food and wine writers and a contingent of overseas wine growers who are in New Zealand for a symposium on wine growing.

The more than 30 displays will include flowers and crafts, as well as food and wine.

In an effort to get people to the festival early in the day a mock battle will take place in

Blenheim between the armies of the Wizard of Christchurch and the Duke of Wellington, said Mr Aitken. They will then leave for the festival in open-air trucks.

A free bus service will run all day from Blenheim to the festival. However, visitors will have to pay to get in and purchase special festival francs to taste the wine and food. Mr Aitken said that last year some store, holders gave Their products away, but realised they were seeing the same faces returning to the display. Most of the companies could not afford to give the samples away.