Victoria Mason

The Climb

Warwick University and Cambridge University form the academic base that came before the trade floor. Victoria Mason then started in buying through a graduate retail management traineeship at Waitrose in London, moving through grocery, horticulture, and wine as her remit widened. By 2016 she was Wine Buyer at Waitrose; from 2019 she was buyer for South Africa and Italy, a step that kept her work close to category stewardship and producer identity.

Today

At The Wine Society, Victoria Mason’s role is defined by buying and by programme leadership. The Climate & Nature Programme sits alongside the wine list, supporting growers as they implement regenerative projects in their vineyards. She also writes on wine for Club Oenologique.

In Their Words A first lesson in tasting can come from scale as much as structure: Victoria Mason recalls Italian wine tastings being served as whole-glass pours, a contrast her father noted against the lighter measure of French tastings. That memory marked the start of her formal education in wine. From there, WSET became the next step in her training, taking that early exposure into a more systematic study of wine.

Recognition

Victoria Mason's honors include Quinta do Noval Award for the best research paper by a new MW, The Vintners’ Company award for the top performance in the business of wine paper, Robert Mondavi award for the best performance in the theory papers, and Wines from Spain Prize.