Winemaker Brian Bicknell had made wine in various parts of the world for about fifteen vintages and had been making wine with grapes from Marlborough grapes for most of that time. Having arrived from Chile to live in Marlborough in 1996 he could see that the various valleys and sites within Marlborough were making quite different styles of wines. Most of the Marlborough wines at the time were being blended across the different areas, so often these different characteristics were lost in the construction of a truly regional blend. In other areas of the world these differences were being celebrated and so the idea of a label celebrating these different sites was hatched.