In 2003, the land on Grants Road, about 11 kilometres from Kurow, was a sheep paddock. There were no neat rows of vines or cellar door signs, and very little to suggest that it might one day produce wine. Yet Jules Stephan was interested in what lay beneath the grass. Soil testing suggested a mix of limestone, gravels and silts that invited comparison with Burgundy. It was enough to make him curious, although hardly a guarantee that wine grapes would thrive here.
The Waitaki Valley was only beginning to attract winegrowers. The first modern plantings in the region dated from 2001, and its appeal was also its difficulty: a long, cool growing season, limestone-influenced soils and very little room for mistakes. This was not a place where someone could simply copy a successful formula from elsewhere. It was a place to learn by doing.
Jules bought the land in 2003. Soil samples were tested in 2004, and Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris were planted in 2005. The vineyard was small enough for every decision to matter, but planting was only the beginning. Vines needed to establish themselves, seasons had to be understood and the people working the land had to learn how it behaved in wind, rain, frost and sunshine.
The first Q vintage arrived in 2010. Five years is a long time to wait for the first bottle from a new vineyard, especially when there is no certainty about what that bottle will be like. Yet that interval is part of the story. Growing grapes is an annual undertaking, but understanding a vineyard takes many seasons. Each vintage adds something to the picture.
There have been years when the decision was not to put a wine into bottle under the Q label. In 2014, the Pinot Gris fruit was sound, but its flavour profile did not meet the standard sought for the label, so the fruit was sold. It was a commercial decision as much as a winemaking one: a bottle carrying the name should earn its place there.
Today Q remains a six-hectare, single-vineyard producer growing three varieties: Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. The wines include different expressions of those grapes, from a dry Pinot Noir rosé to a Barrel Reserve Pinot Gris. Viticulturist Timbo Deaker has been involved with the vineyard since its beginning, and Antony Worch has made the wines since 2012. Continuity matters in a place where one season can be very different from the next.
What began as a question about a patch of land has become a vineyard we know season by season, but never take for granted. Some years reward patience; others demand difficult decisions. The satisfaction is not in having proved the original idea right once and for all. It is in continuing to make wines worth opening, from a place that still has plenty to teach us.