Lake's Folly 60th Anniversary Tasting

Australia’s iconic wines are well known. The likes of Mount Mary, Leeuwin Estate, Cullen and Yarra Yering are firmly entrenched within the pantheon of classics, while producers of contemporary styles of grenache are beginning to take top rank among the country’s most exciting expressions. However, distant from the hullabaloo, Lake’s Folly transcends the shuffle for fashionability. The estate is responsible for artful timepieces that shatter preconceptions of a humid region renowned for tensile semillon and earthen shiraz, rather than the detailed cabernet blends on how here. Wines that rival even the finest Pauillac in terms of longevity, grace and complexity.

Lake’s Folly is situated in Pokolbin, around 168 kilometers north-west of Sydney.  The estate, an inauspicious A-frame winery set in relief against ochre volcanic loams, was founded in 1963 by Max Lake. Lake was a food scientist who strove to craft age-worthy wines of class and restraint, more European of mien than obviously New World and fruity. 

Master of Wine at Langtons, Ned Goodwin MW, was chuffed to visit the estate recently to celebrate its 60th anniversary. He tasted a judicious selection of new and aged wines with maker Rodney Kempe, a Hunter Valley local who plies his craft with a similarly understated groove, producing a suite of wines that Ned describes as ‘thoroughly compelling’. 

Kempe crafts two chardonnay, one from heavier soils that abut the entrance to the winery and the other, the Hill Block, from a better draining site higher up. Neither is necessarily superior to the other, although the regular cuvée may benefit from the lower site’s water retention faculties in drier vintages. Ned called the Hill Block Chardonnay 2011 ‘a stunning wine’. Kempe concurred, citing it as ‘the finest white I’ve crafted’. Without the benefit of bottle age, the Hill Block Chardonnay 2021 goes head-to-head. Ned describes the aromas as ‘pistachio, sea salt and nectarine’, making for real intrigue. When Ned suggested that the regular Chardonnay 2011 bared a strong resemblance to aged Hunter semillon, Kempe commented that ‘in time, white wines from the Hunter become resoundingly ‘Hunter’ rather than representative, necessarily, of their variety.’

However, despite the quality of shiraz bottlings tasted, it is the blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot and shiraz, known for whatever idiosyncratic reason as ‘The Cabernets’, that serves as the real drawcard. Ned tasted a barrel sample of 2023, a vintage with a warm, dry flourish after ample rainfall through the winter and into spring. While adolescent, the fruit is subtle and on point, while the structural latticework is a typically taut, chiffon weave of refined tannins and salty freshness. However, it was The Cabernets 1997 that stole the show! Ned commented that it ‘out-Pauillacs Pauillac’ in terms of is iodine quotient, brimming with marine essences and dried kelp. He enthused that it is ‘…like being belted by rain and wash on a seashore.’ While umami is unquantifiable, this brilliant wine is surely full of it. A few cork-afflicted bottles, however, proved the adage that there is no such as good wine, but only good bottles. The one served at lunch was a ripper! Further comments and scores are below. 

Lakes Folly Chardonnay 2021: from a lower, heavier site, a stone's throw away from this legendary A-frame winery. Notes of toasted hazelnut, stone fruits and mandarin. As forward, plush and mid-weighted as this is, it has surprisingly gone through no malolactic conversion, baring a stream of freshness that tows it all long. A wine that has a prestigious track record of extremely high quality. Screw cap. Drinkable now, but best from 2027 95

Lakes Folly Chardonnay 2011: maker Rodney Kempe opines that after time in bottle, Hunter whites transcend their varietal makeup to simply become Hunter. This certainly suggests he is right. A mid-weighted expression, lean and waxy all at once, strongly resembling the buttered toast, lanolin and yellow plum of local semillon on the nose, with a broad spread of almond meal and tatami straw akin to, say, marsanne across the mid-palate. Complex and idiosyncratic in the best sense, this is a wine for the nerds. Screw cap. Drink now 93

Lakes Folly Hill Block Chardonnay 2021: a broader patina of barrel-fermentation notes articulate pristne fruit from a site higher up, better drained and exposed. Compelling aromas of pistachio, sea salt, nougat and cashew, devoid of banal fruit accents. Truffle and roasted hazelnut on the finish. More filigreed than the regular chardonnay, despite its mid-weight. This stands to make fine, old bones. Screw cap. Best from 2028 95

Lakes Folly Hill Block Chardonnay 2011: While 2011 was a washout for most of Australia, the Hunter (along with Western Australia) scored an exceptional vintage, manifest in this stunning, mid-weighted, highly complex chardonnay. Riveting scents of hazelnut, quince, dried hay and roasted chestnuts, like moving from a subway station in Paris to one in Tokyo, each with a cooker steaming at the exit. Earthen, truffled and impressively expansive. The breadth and drive across the finish alone, score high points. Wonderful wine. Screw cap. Drink or hold 96

Lakes Folly Hunter Valley Caberents “Folly Red” 2008: Despite the nomenclature, this always has a faint dollop of shiraz in the mix and yet, the semblance to fine Pauillac is often uncanny. These wines are mid-weighted, delicate, refined of tannin and of a certain pedigree stamped with the capacity for long-term aging. This, a declassified release (thus the name) due to sodden, wet conditions. Yet a glorious luncheon claret of a wine this has become! Hints of saddle leather, kelp, clove, licorice root and graphite. Nothing intrusive, but for the warm and nourishing feel of umami sloshing about the mouth. A little short and fading as it opens to be the disciplinarian, but this is a wine that offers immense pleasure and the right to celebrate based on its absolute, unequivocal readiness to drink up. Now! Screw cap 94

Lakes Folly Hunter Valley Cabernets 1997: What a treat to taste this! Among the very best cabernets ever tasted from the New World, be it Australia or California. Certainly, far more Bordeaux-like than anything from the latter but for Dominus, rivalling even the shoreline of Pauillac for trumps on the salty iodine-meter! Dried kelp, violet, paprika and mulch, like being belted by rain, wash and seaweed during a storm on the sea shore. Katsuoboshi, yeast extract and a red, ferrous earthenware finish. Wow! To indicate the risks and vagaries of cork, I tasted four of the remaining 11 or so bottles. One was brazenly corked, the other two, stripped by the cork yet not obviously 'corked'. Yet the unknowing drinker would have accepted even those with a smile. Then, this magical bottle! Drink or hold 98