Victoria Mason MW
Speciality
WinesCompany
The Wine Society
Position
Wine Buyer
Victoria is a wine buyer with nine years of diverse wine buying experience in the UK market, ranging from supermarket, Waitrose, to fine wine merchant, Bordeaux Index, to online retailer, The Wine Society. Her specialisms are South Africa and Italy.
After obtaining her BA in English Literature at Warwick University and her MPhil at Cambridge University, Victoria moved to London and started on the Waitrose graduate retail management scheme. After three years in stores, she moved to Waitrose head office as a trainee buyer in the grocery department and took her first wine course at Berry Bros & Rudd.
Following two years as a horticulture buyer, while studying her WSET, she made the transition into Waitrose’s wine buying team in 2016 where she was responsible first for South Africa and the Loire, and from 2019 for South Africa and Italy. She won the Wines from Spain Prize for outstanding results in her WSET Diploma before starting her MW studies, with viticulture and soil life emerging as real passions. While juggling the day job and her wine studies, she has worked three harvests in South Africa, at Rustenberg in 2017, at Reyneke in 2024, and with Donovan Rall in 2025.
Victoria became a Master of Wine in August 2024. Her MW research paper investigated ‘the enablers and barriers to the adoption and practice of regenerative viticulture in Stellenbosch’, for which she won the 2024 Quinta do Noval Award for the best RP by a new MW. She also won The Vintners’ Company award for the top performance in the business of wine paper and the Robert Mondavi award for the best performance in the theory papers.
Currently, Victoria is covering the maternity leave of Sarah Knowles MW, buying Italy, Champagne, and the USA for The Wine Society. In September 2025 she will formally start a new hybrid role where, alongside her responsibilities as a buyer, she will lead The Wine Society’s ‘Climate & Nature Programme’, an annual fund which supports the retailer’s growers implement regenerative projects in their vineyards. Victoria also contributes as a wine writer for Club Oenologique, responsible for their South African fine wine coverage.
After obtaining her BA in English Literature at Warwick University and her MPhil at Cambridge University, Victoria moved to London and started on the Waitrose graduate retail management scheme. After three years in stores, she moved to Waitrose head office as a trainee buyer in the grocery department and took her first wine course at Berry Bros & Rudd.
Following two years as a horticulture buyer, while studying her WSET, she made the transition into Waitrose’s wine buying team in 2016 where she was responsible first for South Africa and the Loire, and from 2019 for South Africa and Italy. She won the Wines from Spain Prize for outstanding results in her WSET Diploma before starting her MW studies, with viticulture and soil life emerging as real passions. While juggling the day job and her wine studies, she has worked three harvests in South Africa, at Rustenberg in 2017, at Reyneke in 2024, and with Donovan Rall in 2025.
Victoria became a Master of Wine in August 2024. Her MW research paper investigated ‘the enablers and barriers to the adoption and practice of regenerative viticulture in Stellenbosch’, for which she won the 2024 Quinta do Noval Award for the best RP by a new MW. She also won The Vintners’ Company award for the top performance in the business of wine paper and the Robert Mondavi award for the best performance in the theory papers.
Currently, Victoria is covering the maternity leave of Sarah Knowles MW, buying Italy, Champagne, and the USA for The Wine Society. In September 2025 she will formally start a new hybrid role where, alongside her responsibilities as a buyer, she will lead The Wine Society’s ‘Climate & Nature Programme’, an annual fund which supports the retailer’s growers implement regenerative projects in their vineyards. Victoria also contributes as a wine writer for Club Oenologique, responsible for their South African fine wine coverage.
