The first time I met Helen Masters was a few months before the endless series of lockdowns due to COVID-19. Just when I decided to kiss goodbye to the hospitality industry, I travelled to Marlborough for the last (sigh) Family of Twelve Tutorial, which used to be held every year, hosting 12 selected lucky wine professionals from across New Zealand and Australia.
Over a few days, scholars tasted several blind wines from twelve of the most prominent, family-owned wineries of NZ (namely Ata Rangi, Craggy Range, Felton Road, etc), with the bonus of comparing those with their counterparts from the rest of the world. The tutorial really aimed to educate young professionals about the intrinsic, singular beauty and authenticity of New Zealand wines. Owners/winemakers of each of the twelve wineries would sit on the panel and contribute with invaluable insights. It’s mid-2025, and I still remember that week. What struck me with Helen Masters and Ata Rangi wines at the time was an unquestionable coolness, figuratively and literally, and a magnetic self-assurance.
I met Helen again a couple of months ago in Melbourne, in the ever-busy back room of the iconic Spring St City Wine Shop.
When asked what has changed since the last time we saw each other, she pointed out a re-focus of Ata Rangi and a cemented acknowledgment of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir-based wines, which have always been their specialties. There is also room for new, with a cool climate Syrah and a crisp, textural Chenin Blanc in the making.
“Since I saw you, we’ve released two new single vineyards in 2020, Kotinga and Masters”, Helen explained. “We’ve done some replanting, thinking about how we look to the future with a lot of vineyards, concentrating on vine health, getting the old vines to be living to sort of 50, 60, 100 years, and the ones that were struggling, replanting those and bringing them back on stream”.
As far as winemaking, Helen highlighted that each wine is organically certified, only natural yeasts are used, with the differences lying in the amount of whole bunch and the size of the vessels utilised, foudre or 228l barrique. The most significant difference with each wine, however, lies in the soil where its fruit is grown. “A lot of people often think that Martinborough as a region is very homogeneous, but it’s not. It is very similar in latitude, but the soil is quite different”. And each and every wine really shows these contrasting nuances.
2022 Ata Rangi Masters Chardonnay
94 pts | RRP $135
This third release is made of fruit from Helen and Brent Masters’s home block, four km south of the town. The vine’s age is 23 years, and the soil has a higher clay content, which guarantees more concentration of aromas and flavours, while the higher altitude allows good acid retention. These vineyard’s peculiarities translate perfectly into the final wine, starting from the nose, which is brimming with aromas of grapefruit, Meyer lemons, Golden Delicious apples, spicy pears, and honeysuckle. Then, fresh cream, margarine, and vanilla pods follow. The palate is characterised by a mineral, slate-like savouriness, unforgivingly salivating. That hungry salinity of oyster shells, marine salt, and olive brine makes it polarising. And even if, in the end, it’s pretty ripe, yellow pulp-fruited, pillowy and flamboyant, with rivulets of melted butter percolating through the centre of the palate, it still speaks with a distinctive tangy, salty accent.
2018 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir
95 pts | RRP $75
From the oldest Pinot Noir plantings on the Martinborough Terrace. Despite the opening being all about that spicy, quintessentially whole bunch character, this is not overpowering the fruit; rather, it’s complementing that. The style is about refinement and elegance, with some volatile acidity adding that extra aromatic/floral lift and shining, polished red fruit characters, which contribute to making the wine very light, almost feathery in its proposition. On the palate, there is a beautiful, enticing bitterness of fruit tannins, coupled with an intriguing dried herbs aspect, with fennel pollen, thyme and sage flavours. Pristine and aromatic, an incredible effort here.
2021 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir
95 pts | RRP $140
When compared to the 2018 vintage, this pinot is more horizontal than vertical, larger than longer and linear, expanding on the sides rather than from the front to the back. Undoubtedly, there is more power, more concentration of fruit, more ripeness here. A few years of difference make the case. But that hallmark of fine-grain tannins -great quality tannins- with their welcoming bitterness, is again in full display. Despite the immediacy and ripeness of the concentrated red fruit, this wine will age very well in terms of its structure and acidity. As with other Pinots from Ata Rangi, that savoury scar, seaweed-like in this instance, shows proudly.
2021 Ata Rangi Kotinga Pinot Noir
98 pts | RRP $115
The fruit used in this cuvée is harvested from vineyards on the eastern end of Puruatanga Road, on soils predominantly featuring free-draining gravel. This second release is screaming minerality, with a noticeable graphite-like foreword. Then cinnamon, bramble, a touch of clove, nutmeg, and cedar. Oak and whole bunches are not the only features here, as there is a noticeable amaro, Campari-like note, and aromatic herbs enriching the picture. Again, there is a seaweed-like salty element complemented by a lick of green walnut. It is a highly well-balanced wine; the palate being the exact photocopy of the nose, which, in case you ask, no, it’s not always that obvious. Light on its feet, yet bold. The precise line of acidity is caressing the palate and melting into a persistent length of flavours; having tried this wine from an open bottle from the day before, I see how much the oxygen benefited it. And if the proof is in the pudding, a wine that can stand against oxygen so well, and so effortlessly- and actually improving with air exposure- got the final word.
2019 Ata Rangi McCrone Pinot Noir
96 pts | RRP $115
This vineyard is located 400 metres from the winery, with soil presenting a layer of clay through to the alluvial gravel. There is a strong umami character here, which I have partially seen in some of the previous wines, but in this particular case, it is rather apparent. Seaweed, soy sauce, and black olive tapenade, with ironstone and ferrous characters contributing to the interest of this wine. The length is impressive, thanks to its elevated acidity, which is just like a stream of fresh water going on and on and on. Think of when you wake up in the morning, throw some fresh water on your face; that is the kind of level of refreshment that I’m talking about. Pristine, translucent, balanced, and considering the amount of oxidation that this wine has gone through since the opening of the bottle (which happened the day before, in the morning), it’s incredible how splendid it is, even more so because it can withstand the feared oxygen test so gracefully. Cheers to that.
2020 Ata Rangi McCrone Pinot Noir
94 pts | RRP $145
Clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, black cherry, blue plum, mulberry and blackberry fruit, with an iron-like scratch that adds some character. This is a square pinot, and the inside of the square is bursting with fruit, compacted by the structure, the muscular presence. It’s a wine with angles, and in every corner, the slowly building tannins make themselves noticeable. Again, I think this pinot loves some extra oxygen because it is helping to breathe air into the dense fruit and tannins. There is a lot of meat on the bones here, as the savoury element of corned beef and aromatic herbs leaves a hallmark.
2020 Ata Rangi Masters Pinot Noir
98 pts | RRP $140
From a vineyard site named “Seriously Nuts”, this is a seriously crazy good wine. Soils with clay mixed thoroughly with the gravel. Floral and herbal opening with lavender and dried aromatic herbs. Sandy tannins, a tactile dry extract on the palate, denote a wine of considerable presence, without being too ostentatious. It is full of purpose and life, yet has an “angelic” side, given its rather feathery nature. The red fruit characters, you can swirl your tongue around each and every one of them: the wild cherry, the raspberry, the cranberry, the blood plum. It has such an attractive, polished aromatic guise, with an aura surrounded by pure stardust, that it is impossible to not stop and stare at it.
2021 Ata Rangi Masters Pinot Noir
95 pts | RRP $140
A terrific, elegant wine with the right level of VA lift that reflects in the fragrant, crunchy, red-fuited and floral duality, without missing a little umami, and bramble-cinnamon-like notes to spice up things. Moreover, a smoky meatiness, like bresaola, blood orange and plum characters add to the overall complexity. The palate is both very savoury and very fruity. You get a beautiful dry extract feeling, that unmistakable tactile sensation on the palate, that culminates in a long, tantalising length. It is such a complex, refreshing, salivating wine that you’ll finish the bottle in the blink of an eye.
