The properties of wood and wood based materials are strongly dependent on the properties of its fibres; i.e. the cell wall properties. The ability to characterize these in order to increase our understanding of structure-property relationships is thus highly important. This article gives a brief overview of the state of the art in experimental techniques to characterize the mechanical properties of wood at both the level of the single cell and that of the cell-wall. Challenges, opportunities, drawbacks and limitations of single fibre tensile tests and nanoindentation are discussed with respect to the wood material properties.