Lake's Folly Cabernets 2021

Lake's Folly holds a genuinely singular place in Australian wine history. In 1963, Sydney hand surgeon Max Lake decided to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in the Hunter Valley — a region the established local trade considered strictly Shiraz and Semillon territory, with the area's subtropical humidity and bunch-rot pressure long thought hostile to thin-skinned Bordeaux varieties. His fellow winemakers treated the idea with open bemusement, and the vineyard's now-famous name was born directly from that ridicule. The first vintage, in 1966, was made entirely by hand — and feet. Lake proved every doubter wrong: by 1973, Len Evans was already writing about the estate's outsized influence on Australian wine, and in 2000 the property passed to Peter and Lee Fogarty, with Hunter-born winemaker Rod Kempe continuing to steward the same restrained, terroir-first philosophy ever since. Today Lake's Folly makes just two wines — this Cabernet blend and a Chardonnay — from low-yielding, hand-picked estate fruit at Pokolbin, within sight of the cooling sea breezes off the Brokenback Range. The blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Shiraz is open-fermented for softer, gentler tannins, settled six months in large old casks, then aged a further year in French oak barriques split across new, one, and two-year-old wood.

The result is one of Australia's most quietly revered reds — elegant and perfumed rather than powerful, with violet, blackcurrant, and earthy, savoury complexity meeting fine-grained tannins and a deft touch of oak. Lifted blueberry, raspberry, and fresh cherry carry through the palate alongside liquorice and black pepper, in a medium-bodied, textural style built on genuine finesse. It's Australia's most collected Cabernet blend (per Wine Ark, 2023), and for good reason — bottles from the 1980s and 90s are still drinking beautifully today, a testament to real structure beneath the wine's immediate charm.