Wine of the week

2025 Mason Rosé RRP $36

This Martinborough rosé elevates the category of pink wine to another level with its rare dry taste. It's made entirely from Pinot Noir, which often sports powerful fruity aromas, which are held in check here, thanks to the thoughtful viticulture and winemaking by Paul Mason who ensures that the low 1.5 grams of residual sugar actually tastes as dry as it sounds. Aligned with dried berry aromas and crisp lingering layers of lemon juice, yuzu zest and a medium body, this is a next level rosé with depth, length and delicious drinkability.

Only 771 bottles were made, so get in quick.

Available from Martinborough Wine Merchants and Pain & Kershaw in Martinborough.

Rosé has been outselling white wine in France since 2013 and there’s no shortage of it in New Zealand but this one comes from a tiny vineyard, once neglected for over a decade and now owned by winemaker Paul Mason and his partner in life, Amy. They bought small parcel of land tucked into a hidden valley at the end of Te Muna Road in late 2021; exactly 20 years after it had originally been planted in a cornucopia of vines by the late Bill Brink.

The site was overgrown with wires "all over the place and the only solution to chop it back or uproot it".

“It was a real basket case set-up, entirely planted in Pinot Noir but with six clones on seven different rootstocks, including some I had never heard of,” says Paul, who opted to chop the vines back dramatically and see where that took them. 

The first vintage of Mason Rosé and Pinot Noir was 2023, a tricky year to launch a new brand but the wines were solid expressions of the cooler climate in Te Muna Valley, 10kms away from Martinborough village and with a windier, typically cooler climate and later harvest dates.

Te Muna is te reo Maori for ‘special place’ or ‘hidden place’ and this wine lives up to that moniker.