Meet Contentious Character - the newest addition to the Canberra wine region

It's the sort of statement that's often bantered about amongst friends, particularly after a few glasses vino. As you swirl your shiraz around the glass, you announce, "one day, I'd love to buy a vineyard", to murmurs of agreement around the table.

It's a dream that has become a reality for Tony Mansfield, Ben Jarrett, Jeremy Wilson and Ross Appleton who have bought the previous Lambert Vineyards at Wamboin.

While the four have a keen interest in food and wine, none have a specific wine background - Mansfield's background is advertising and marketing, Appleton's is operations and finance, Wilson's is retail operations and Jarrett's is in sales.

Wilson in particular is learning to become a winemaker, with the others also learning the ropes and bringing their different backgrounds to business. Together they have launched their own wine label, Contentious Character.

The vineyard itself has been around for two decades. It was back in 2012 when Steve and Ruth Lambert closed the cellar door back, but continued to keep up grape production, such was their love of wine. Then in mid-2016, Mansfield, Jarrett, Wilson and Appleton bought the vineyard.

"We are treating this as a learning journey for us, so we want to make it very much a learning journey for others as well in terms of wine," says Mansfield.

"We've also brought on board a consultant winemaker and we have the Lambert family helping us for the next two years as well. So we've kind of got all bases covered from that point of view - there's a good support network in place to help us."

The Contentious Character group re-opened the cellar door to the public in late 2016, mostly to let in locals with many still asking for Lambert Vineyards wines from years ago. A couple of months later and they're finding their groove, having now also opened the kitchen. The final piece in the puzzle, was to find a chef to make the most of the spacious dining area, kitchen and pizza oven.

After a bit of a search they found Tom Stoneham. Originally from the UK, Stoneham first came to Australia about six years ago with the Jamie Oliver Group to help open the Sydney Jamie's Italian.

From there he opened his own restaurant in Sydney with another chef, with a strong focus on locally-sourced produce: "we had a big map of New South Wales on the wall, and indicators where every single things came from, right through the wine and the food".

That venture closed after 18 months, and a role as head chef of Jamie's Italian in Canberra moved him to the nation's capital. He left that role in early 2016, and has been living in Sutton working on a number of projects, including a stint cooking at Grazing Restaurant.

Starting as head chef at Contentious Character at the beginning of 2017, Stoneham has created a menu that not only complements the wine, but also includes it as much as possible. There's a lamb dish braised with 'loads of shiraz', a spaghetti and prawn dish with a riesling sauce, and a frosé-esque rosé sorbet dessert.

There's small tasting plates, and larger share plates for those wanting to sit down for a meal. The food is a mix of rustic English, Italian, French and modern Australian, and makes the most of whatever produce is available locally.

"A lot of the locals have come in and said 'I grow garlic at home' etc, so we're gradually getting names and details of people in the area and getting our list together. Tom's already been purchasing that way, but we will increase that over time and we'll also build our own big veggie garden out the back of the kitchen," says Mansfield.

Stoneham even found an old supplier list in the kitchen, and has been re-igniting those old relationships.

"I've just looked around the area - there's so many farms along this road with signs out the front saying they're selling veggies, so I just drive up there and introduce myself and see what they've got," says Stoneham.

"And I'm a keen gardener, I've got a big veggie patch at home, and very used to growing as much as my own stuff as possible."

Stoneham has even been getting out of the kitchen and helping out in the vineyard, expanding his own knowledge of wine alongside the new vineyard owners.

The Contentious Character group are continuing to grow seven varieties of grape at the vineyard. They're currently bottling 2015 and 2016 wines, which are a hybrid predominantly produced by the Lamberts, and finished off by the new owners. This year's harvest in a few months will be the first full vintage by Contentious Character. Mansfield expects the 2016 pinot noir in particular will be an excellent drop.

And as for that cheeky name?

"It started through having a conversation about the characters of wine, and the fact that people disagree on them and interpret them differently and we were trying to find the right word to describe it," says Mansfield.

"And we were also thinking about the fact that you actually need a big of contention in life to make something a success and to make a good product. You think of something like the Sydney Opera House, they argued for years and years over that. You think about Melbourne and Sydney arguing for years over whether or not they should be the capital, and we ended up with Canberra. So some quite positive things comes out of a healthy discourse.

"And we also happen to be in Canberra which is the home of Australian discourse. It was the riskiest name we had out of ten names, but it rated quite well. We're happy with it."

Contentious Character is at 810 Norton Rd, Wamboin. The cellar door and kitchen are open 10am-5pm, Saturday and Sunday.