The first vines were planted at the Fighting Gully Road vineyard site in 1997. The farm, mostly unimproved, was purchased in 1995 and the following two years were spent clearing the property of scrub, stumps and many thousands of rabbits.
After establishing a vineyard on colluvial slopes overlooking the Ovens river valley with his brothers in 1988, Marks interest in even cooler climate viticulture led him to elevated Beechworth plateau that can be clearly seen from the original vineyard.