It all started back in 1999 when Mark Mason left the well established Sacred Hill Winery he co- founded in 1986 to focus on one variety, something that will challenge him for many years. He found what he had been looking for, a serene hidden alpine valley at the foothills of Central Otago’s Mt Pisa Range. It helped there was a ski field 8 km away…

The farm he purchased was overgrown with wild briar roses, had no power and limited water. What it did have was 145 hectares of steep, warm north facing slopes, a complex range of soils from clays to glacial till and gravel loams and quartz deposits from up to 800,000 years ago.

Mark brought a little bulldozer and got on with clearing the wild rose briars and marking out multiple separate plots to give as many chances as possible for the vines to show their future potential as blending components from this privileged site.

After a few years hard labour he had 18 different  vineyards on different slopes, aspects, and soils and some of the highest plantings in New Zealand. To maximise the potential for complexity , eight clones (5, Abel, 10/5, 667, 777, 113, 114, 115) were grafted onto drought tolerant root stock , all planted at close spacings of 3400 vines/hectare.

Fast forward to 2014 and its more than 14 years since the vineyard was planted, now all meticulously looked after by Michelle Crawford.

Mark’s domain these days is the gypsy winery – Quest Farm’s own winemaking gear supplemented by leasing local cool stores as his winery. He uses all the normal artisanal winemaking methods – hand picking, destemming, no crushing, varying amounts of whole bunch additions, small wild ferments, hand plunging, long skin contact and basket pressing into barrels. He deliberately chooses one to three year old barrels which allow him to see what the different plots are trying to convey – new oak would mask these complex nuances.

With the single vineyard bottling, Mark aims for subtle style – one with aromas of rosehip, dark fruit and spice, with a structured long palate. It’s the wine he and Michelle like to drink, so it is natural that this to be the wine they share with the world.

For anyone else, having tamed the land and  established the Quest Farm style it would provide time to relax. However, Mark and Michelle can’t stand still and their future includes;  building a sustainable winery with solar and micro hydro, expanding the merino and highland cattle farm and when the vines are a little older a new range that shows off Quest Farm’s three distinct soils. Oh, and perhaps one day go for a ski again….

The average rainfall at The Farm is only 330mm per year and humidity is low at 30-40%.  The dry, barren landscape forces the vines to work hard, resulting in low vigour vines.  The low humidity means that we experience low disease pressure resulting in minimal spray usage and an easier conversion to Organic Production.

The diurnal temperature range on the site is high. The northerly aspect of the valley traps sunlight and heat during the day. As soon as the sun drops behind Mt Pisa, a cool katabolic wind instantly flows over the site cooling the vineyard overnight. This dramatic diurnal is incredibility important for developing the gentle yet intense fragrant aromas of the fickle Pinot noir grape.

The nature of the landscape has such an effect that the various vineyards mature over a two week period and the naturally minimising the crop load and with the sheltered north facing slopes; the fruit is able to mature to its optimum quality and gives different flavour profiles that further increases our options with which to blend our Quest Farm Single Vineyard Pinot Noir.

The Farm contains 18 separate vineyard sites covering a wide range of soil types and aspect.   The Farm lies in a rain shadow at the foothills of the Pisa Range and the soils are predominately sourced from this ancient mountain range.  Each of the soils has an influence on the growth and flavour of the grapes.

In general terms, the vineyard soils can be divided into three categories.

In the upper slopes, Gravels dominate.  The free draining nature of this soil structure results in thicker skins and small berries, bright aromatic red fruit characters are found in the resulting wines.

Free draining loams in the middle blocks are our more consistently warmer and more protected sites. This results in bigger bunches, careful water management ensures we still have small berry intensity, these blocks provide mid palate weight in the wine

Lower blocks contain Tertiary glacial deposits. These soils are mixed – here clay fines are mixed with schist, quartz, manganite, on steep slopes. In wetter environs, clay soils with their higher water holding capacity can result in vigourous vines, in our dry climate the opposite is true. Compact soils resulted in a greater challenge during vine establishment, now at over a decade old the vines are starting to show fine and delicate tannins and strong structure, they are starting to express their potential after a decade and are now showing themselves to be exciting blocks

Mark’s passion had always been skiing. The family farm had diversified into viticulture in the early 1980’s and in an effort to curb his skiing obsession and direct his career elsewhere, Marks Mother (Doris) and Sister (Suzie) enrolled him as far away from the slopes as possible – Roseworthy College in South Australia. Armed with a Diploma in Wine Marketing, Mark returned to Hawkes Bay and established Sacred Hill Winery with his Brother David in 1986. After working on the Sacred Hill project for over a dozen years he again decided it was time to go skiing, however the planned break from the wine industry didn’t go so well… When in Central, he fell in love with the 145 hectare block which is now home to Quest Farm.

Michelle Crawford

Mark now operates the Farm and winery in conjunction with his partner, Michelle Crawford.  Michelle is a viticulturist, while she helps look after the Quest vineyard with Mark; she’s also been the viticulturist for Chard Farm since 2007. Before this Michelle travelled and worked with wine in France, Japan, Australia, South Africa and the USA. In New Zealand she completed both a Post Graduate Diploma Viticulture and Oenology and a Masters Applied Science (Viticulture) at Lincoln University and was previously based in Martinborough.