The Profile: Helen Masters

She was taking a gap year between secondary school and tertiary studies and had written to the winery asking for a job, following her interest in the flavour and dynamics of taste.

More than 30 years on, Helen is winemaker at the iconic Ata Rangi, with a philosophy of expressing the vintage in each wine. “I ask myself every year, ‘what is the vintage trying to say about the fruit?’ I believe the vintage character is the key to expressing a wine, but also that the vintage character shouldn’t hide what the fruit and the soil conditions are about in the wines we make.”

Helen grew up in a large Ōtaki family, immersed in conversations about food and wine, and had worked as a part time cook for Ruth and Paul Pretty while at school. Being the youngest of 12 children made it interesting to hear about the wine regularly served as part of family get togethers. “I noticed that wine held my interest in terms of the things we talked about as a family,” says Helen, whose eldest brother had worked as a winemaker in Australia. “We were all interested in how things were made, such as preserves, pickles and the food that we grew, and then there was wine, which I found really interesting as it became part of family life and made occasions very captivating for me.”

On leaving school she read about new wineries in a book by Michael Cooper and was prompted to write to Ata Rangi. “Phyll Paton, wife of Ata Rangi founder Clive Paton (and a winemaker in her own right), phoned to ask if I could come for an interview and my mother drove me over there. I remember being quite surprised when we drove over the Akatarawas that it seemed quite a long way away to me, at the time. When we arrived and met Phyll, she asked if I could start right now. My mother said, ‘yes, she can’.”

Her mother sent her clothes over on a bus, and by the time they arrived Helen was already immersed in vineyard work, the winery, helping at the cellar door, babysitting, and making up boxes of wine orders.

When her gap year was complete, Helen went on to Massey University for a degree in food technology. Money beckoned after fulltime study, leading led her to work at Nestlé in Auckland for three years. “It was interesting in terms of people, processes and systems, but I knew I didn’t want to make dry powdered soups, so I decided to return to winemaking and worked a vintage at Cloudy Bay, then at Chard Farm, and then worked overseas doing winemaking stints in California and Oregon.”

She couldn’t help but be impressed by the wines of Oregon and California, but there were other flavours that held her heart captive to Martinborough in New Zealand. “There’s a richness and a sweetness that attracts attention in those North American wines, but it was the way that Martinborough wines didn’t end with an overt sweetness that I really loved, so I came back to work as Claire Mulholland’s assistant for three vintages at Martinborough Vineyards in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and then went to Ata Rangi in late 2003. I’ve remained there ever since.”

One of her personal philosophies is that life provides natural links, and it was one of those that led Helen and her husband Ben Masters, who is connected to the Ata Rangi extended family, back to the region. “I guess what brought us back to Martinborough was the wine. Of all my experiences, there was something about the wines there that was really special. I really loved the savouriness and the depth without richness, so when they asked me to come back to work with them, it felt like a natural full circle.”

The biggest challenges of winemaking in Martinborough today are a combination of naturally low yields and fast rising land prices. “Low yields are usually regarded as playing a strong role in making high quality wine, but sometimes it’s not the best thing for the vine or the wine, and it’s not easy on sustainability. The low yields in 2021 and 2022 made it tricky to get balance in terms of business and the style of the wines,” she says.

“One of the challenges at Ata Rangi is that all our vineyard blocks are so small and so different that they need to be very highly managed. This can be difficult in terms of finding people who are interested to work with vines in the region. It’s very difficult and this is especially so when land prices are going through the roof, which makes it hard for young people to get established here.”

On the other hand, the dry climate, high winds, hot summers and cold winters all make Martinborough ideal for high quality wine, particularly Pinot Noir. “I’m not afraid of saying ‘this is the wine that it wants to be from this vintage’. We don’t add yeasts, we don’t filter or fine, so some years the wines are a bit more tannic but that’s the expression of vintage. I’m really unapologetic about that. For those people who enjoy a more opulent Pinot Noir, it can perhaps be challenging if it is more of a tannic vintage in some of our wines, but these are the wines that reward time in the bottle.”

Gardening, cooking and entertaining are favourite past times of Helen’s when she is relaxing, and she and Ben now have their own 2.2-hectare vineyard, purchased in 2015. “The vines are now 21 years old and we asked the previous owners to let us know if they ever decided to sell. There’s never a dull moment when you have a vineyard, but I like making and growing things; it’s how I relax. Ben and I mostly grow things that are edible. We’ve got all sorts of apple trees as well as a vegetable garden and we grow pomegranates and yuzu. There are a lot of flowers intermingled, but the primary focus is edible food.” Their vineyard is planted mostly in Pinot Noir with half a hectare of Chardonnay which now goes into Ata Rangi Masters Chardonnay.

Meanwhile, her parents remain on the same property in Ōtaki on which Helen grew up. “We’re lucky to have that place to gather as a family; the place where those early wine discussions around the family dinner table first began.

Desert Island Wishlist

Wine: Any white Burgundy from Domaine Coche-Dury

Meal: White bait with asparagus and hollandaise sauce

Album: A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders

Book or Magazine: The World of Fine Wine