If there's one thing Ben Jarrett knows about his 10 years in hospitality, it's that Canberra's population is always on the move.
The key is to jump into the moving waters, and listen to what they're telling you.
Contentious Character, the urban winery he runs with Jeremy Wilson, has gone from a semi-rural vineyard just outside Canberra in 2016, to a concept store in the nascent precinct of Dairy Road in 2023, to a new lakefront location surrounded by apartments, businesses and passersby who might just stop in for a drop.
On a bright and breezy Friday afternoon on the Kingston Foreshore, just a day or two after opening Contentious Character in its new digs, there's a sense of possibility gusting across the water, which is reflecting one of Canberra's signature blue-and-white winter skies.
It's about 3pm, and there's a group of older, retired-age men seated around a wine barrel, tasting the wine and shooting the breeze. The large dining space, with a dark fitout and sparkling glassware, is largely empty. But despite the relatively secluded positioning of the winery right up the Fyshwick end of the foreshore, there's plenty of foot traffic outside, despite the chill - dog walkers, pram pushers, locals taking a stroll.
Seating up to 200 people, including a couple of private dining spaces, the site was, until recently, home to Cinnabar, a popular Asian restaurant. On one side is Molto, an Italian pasta-bar favourite, and on the other, a soon-to-open venue that's rumoured to be another bar. Cafes, restaurants and bars line the whole foreshore, surrounded by high-end apartments. It's a precinct that's well and truly come into its own in the 20 years since it was established.
It's a change from Dairy Road, a precinct poised for greatness that is still many years away. The Molonglo Group, the outfit behind the New Acton precinct, has grand plans for a residential zone, that will include more ecological wetlands. But until those plans are given the go-ahead, the place is a kind of revolving door for out-of-the-way speciality studios and Capital Brewing's much-loved taproom.
The outfit moved to Dairy Road in Fyshwick in 2023 - a kind of concept winery with a full menu - and made a go of it, until Jarrett and his co-owners realised they couldn't wait for the precinct's full potential to be realised.
"The foreshore itself is actually continuing to evolve, and all precincts have different life cycles," Jarrett says.
"Plus you've got the apartment dwellings and the high density population market. We get a lot of passing traffic. While we were doing the fitout ... we had so many people stopping."
Jarrett says the mix of high-density living, a thriving business community, and the destination status of Kingston lakefront are perfect for a winery and cellar door. For all Canberra's fickleness in terms of its population, Contentious Character has its own following.
"We've got a big group of our wine club members and our regular customers already, that's followed us from day dot," he says.
"From 2016, we still have a lot of customers that are very, very loyal and love what we do, and see where we've been going and what we've been doing.
"But it's actually expanding on that, so that when you come in here, it feels like you're part of our journey and part of the extension of the family. I'm not going to say that we're perfect at it, but that's what we really strive to do all the time."
It's here, perhaps, that newcomers in the hospitality scene, those big, glitzy corporate outfits from Sydney or Melbourne, fall down when trying to muscle in on the Canberra market. There's so much about Canberra's population that's both predictable and constantly changing, and it's not just about money and appetite (although Canberra has plenty of both).
"Canberra is really heavily reliant on what is happening in the federal government, and we do have that really transient population," Jarrett says.
"The success of the amount of hospitality and retail people in Canberra relies on that transient population, not just the live population."
The winery's concept begins and ends with their love of food and wine, and discussing and debating the merits of both; "contentious" refers to the flavours different personalities bring to the table, but also the components of the wine.
"The vineyards and the soil and the climate will bring the different flavours to wine, so it's a play on the mould between the two - the enjoyment over and the characteristics of the wine itself," Jarrett says.
The winery sources grapes from seven cool and moderate climates around Australia, and two from New Zealand. The full menu includes tapas-style sharing plates, alongside mains like seafood pie and deep-fried lasagne.
Jarrett hopes more people will become regulars - they've already had a couple of groups come in multiple times - and that Contentious Character, with its whimsical names - "Bubbly Smugglers", "No Riesling To Worry" - and sophisticated packaging, will be a regular fixture.
"We've got a real mix from a young audience right through to retirees with our wine brand," he says.
"We dial up between our statement range, which is all about drink now, have a little bit of fun and enjoyment, like the 'Priscilla Queen of the Pinot Gris', those ones which really talk to that younger audience, but then we have our more serious side of wine-making as well, which really talk to that slightly older demographic and real foodies."
While we sit talking, a couple make their way past us to the door, stopping to compliment Jarrett on the service, and to praise the fact that lunch was still being served mid-afternoon. It's definitely a selling point, this all-day food offering, when so many places close between the lunch and dinner hours.
And when we return on Monday morning to capture photos, we learn the winery was inundated throughout Sunday afternoon, its first weekend of trading, with people ordering full meals between 2pm and 5pm. It's an early sign, perhaps, of a gap that is now being filled - the urban winery finding its place.
Contentious Character is now open on the Kingston Foreshore. contentiouscharacter.com.au
