Winemaker offers five times asking price

Thirteen years ago a Wairarapa pinot noir sold for $100 a bottle – now the winery is willing to pay five times that to get it back.

Winemaker Paul Mason is prepared to pay $500 a bottle to anyone holding stock of Martinborough Vineyard's champion 1998 Reserve pinot noir.

The liquid gold wine took top place at a prestigious blind tasting competition in Pasadena, California last month.

The competition was staged to discover the world's top 20 pinot noir.

Mr Mason said the vineyard had just 10 bottles of the winning wine remaining in its stocks.

"We have been inundated with calls from wine lovers wanting to place orders for this world-class wine," Mr Mason said.

The vineyard had produced just 300 cases of the award-winning pinot noir at the time.

"We marketed it worldwide at $100 per bottle (in 1998). We've got 10 bottles left in our cellar and we don't want to sell them."

Mr Mason said the vineyard had not launched the buyback as a money-making venture.

"We don't expect to get too many bottles back as part of the buyback," he said.

The vineyard had organised the scheme in the hope of building up its own tasting stocks and obtaining single bottles for distributors and friends overseas.

"The win ... means this is now a very rare wine," Mr Mason said.

He said the $500 buyback offer would be conditional upon the wine having been cellared in appropriate conditions. That involved wine being stored in cool temperatures and laid on its side, he said.

The Wairarapa wine bettered pinot noir entries from prestigious Californian, Oregon, Australian, German and French vineyards in the competition.