“Doing it my way” – backing yourself for satisfaction and profit

An unexpected sparkling blue-domed day. Contrarian in view of the forecast and after horizontal rain the day before, it came like a blessing. Especially on a little island off Auckland, which has a micro-climate especially suited to growing certain types of grapes.

We climbed aboard our little wine tour bus, guided by Wayne the local expert. He took us to our first vineyard, and the first lesson for the day: choosing your own path.

The vintner, call him Les, had constructed for himself one of those chequered careers which seem so typical of smaller wine-growers: originally a geologist, then morphing into a medical degree and a successful practice with a lengthy spell in Europe. Remarkable guy.

Then like so many Kiwis, the hobbit returned to the Shire; bought a few acres whose geology he could analyse and appreciate; carefully considered the history of the land including a volcanic eruption on the neighbouring island 900 years ago; planted his vines and waited.

Les only does single varietal vintages, and pretty much single paddock ones at that. He does what he reckons will work, and what he thinks he will enjoy, like:

• Deciding that just doing a single cabernet franc vintage would be interesting, and "might appeal to some cab franc geeks out there"
  
• Planting some montepulciano vines, which no-one on the island had done before, because the geography and climate of that part of the island remind him of the Abruzzi where he reckons montepulciano grows best (his wife is Italian)
  
• Assessing that the section where some syrah is planted, split by a 1.8 metre wide creek, grows with different characteristics on each side of the creek, so he bottles each sides harvest separately.
  

I talked to Les about the commercial model, versus his kind of going your own way attitude, the Field of Dreams theory – build it and they will come. Plenty of money went down the drain doing that in telecoms in the recent past.

He just backs himself, his judgement and his knowledge. Marlborough is suffering a wine glut, but Les's vintages sell out, and:

• There turns out to be a community of cab franc geeks who snap up his strict varietal output
  
• His east side of the creek harvest has produced a rich and uncopiable "rosé with attitude"
  
• His second vintage of montepulciano is not yet bottled but has a long queue of punters waiting for it
  
• One of the world's leading wine writers has said of Les's cab franc vintages that they would "club any Chinon into submission" – Chinon apparently being the cab franc geeks' benchmark.
  

Look, I know Les is doing what he's doing because he can choose to, after a long, arduous and probably lucrative career. But it's still a pretty remarkable result built on:

• Confidence
  
• Self-belief
  
• Cross-application of knowledge – geology, geography, medieval and Palaeolithic history
  
• Intuition
  
• The guts to back himself on all of that.
  

If it can work in a high-stakes, capital-intensive business like wine-growing, I reckon there's scope for your humble blogger to back himself on a few more judgement calls.