Lake’s Folly

Lake's Folly is a legendaryAustralian winery located in the Hunter Valley and was Australia's firstboutique winery. The winery is a small but sophisticated operation, with only12 hectares and an annual production of around 4,500 cases, and usestraditional winemaking techniques.

In 1963, Mr. Max Lake, who wasworking as a surgeon in Sydney, decided to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in thehumid Hunter Valley. At that time, everyone thought that he was crazy becausethe wineries in the Hunter Valley at that time were still planting cheap Shirazand Semillon grapes, which were still unknown. However, the stubborn Max didnot pay attention to other people's opinions, resolutely in the Hunter Valleyto buy the estate, bold in this piece of land in the introduction of CabernetSauvignon red grapes, the creation of Australia's first shop-style winery(meaning production is scarce but the production of excellent winery), andplayfully named the winery Lake's Folly (meaning stupid work). The result was asurprise to everyone - not only did he grow good quality grapes and produceexcellent red wine, the estate has since become famous; it also set off aCabernet Sauvignon planting craze in the valley, so that the Hunter Valley hasrapidly increased in popularity. The Hunter Valley's number one wine.

When the Lake's family sold theestate, it was coveted as a boutique wine, and after much deliberation, theestate was sold in 2000 to Peter Fogarty, who was very adamant about preservingthe character of the Lake's family wines. Now six years later, Peter Fogartyhas been working hard to maintain the original character of the estate, and hasalways adhered to this "small but fine" way of doing business.

Since the establishment of theestate, the most important thing is the quality of the wines, only 12 hectaresof vineyards are planted with vines planted at the beginning of the estate,with an average age of more than 30 years, which is the optimal age of thevines. In order to guarantee the quality of the wines produced, they alsoinsist on low yields and high quality, and assign specialists to manage thevineyards, controlling the yield of the grapes through pruning, so that even inbad years, the winery's wines can still be maintained at a very high quality.In addition to the careful management of the vineyards, in order to ensure thequality of the wines, all the grapes are hand-picked and the traditionalwinemaking method of open-mouth fermentation is used, during which the pomaceis pressed and stirred with a lighter force, which results in softer tanninsand a more approachable wine. After fermentation, the wine is put directly intoold oak barrels for natural clarification. In the spring of the following year,the wine is transferred to smaller new French oak barrels and aged for 18months before bottling. As a result, Lake's Folly wines are drinkable whenyoung and age much better than most Australian wines.

Lake's Folly produces onlytwo good wines, one is Cabernet Sauvignon red wine, the other is 100%Chardonnay white wine, both using their own vineyard planted grapes, the annualproduction of a total of only 4,500 cases of wine. The red Cabernet Sauvignonhas a deep, intense, very rich ruby red color, with a delightful aroma thatgoes far beyond pure fruit, with hints of vanilla, tobacco and a touch ofleather; good acidity, sweetness and mellowness, a model of elegance in afull-bodied wine, with fine, firm tannins and a long, lingering finish, withgood aging potential. There are many outstanding vintages of this wine,especially 1987, 1981 and 1978; in particular, the 1978 vintage was selected bythe Michelin (Michelin) three-star restaurant Les Trois Gros in 1990 as thewine of choice. If you look back at the chronicle of the development of Lake's Folly, you will find that the estate's record of awards can be said tobe countless, and the most recent was in 2006, to Australia's most famous winecritic Mr. James Halliday's leadership of the selection of the judging bodyselected the Hunter Valley four top works. Among them, three wines from FlynnLake Estate in 2002 and 2003 years were selected, and won high scores of 94-96,which is indeed the deserved "King of Hunter Valley".