Folly maybe, but certainly no Fluke!

There’s no denying that I have a lot of affection for Lake’s Folly and what it stands for. When Max Lake, his family and friends set about planting the vineyard in 1963, they were creating history by establishing Australia’s first ’boutique’ vineyard. Something more than a hobby, and later to evolve into a full-scale business, it pioneered the trail since followed by something over 1600 other ’boutiques’ in Australia.

The mere fact that Lake elected to introduce cabernet sauvignon to the Hunter Valley, then almost exclusively the domain of shiraz and semillon, adds further richness and character to the story. Even today the Hunter is not supposed to be able to produce drinkable cabernet, yet Lake’s Folly continues to fly in the face of quite reasonable expectation and logic. However, the Folly is sited on perhaps some of the Hunter’s finest viticultural dirt. Its south-easterly site of twelve hectares is a combination of volcanic hill and alluvial creek flat.

The first Folly red was made by hand and feet in 1966. Three years later Lake planted chardonnay, just a year after Murray Tyrrell planted his first hectare nearby. Both the Tyrrell’s Vat 47 and the Lake’s Folly Chardonnay have evolved over time into the region’s two very different, utterly distinctive but classic chardonnays. While they share their remarkable longevity, the Folly is generally fleshier and rounder, more expressive of intense juicy honeydew melon and citrus fruit against the long, fine, tightly integrated, more savoury and restrained Vat 47.

To taste a very comprehensive vertical of the Folly red, dating back to 1972, was a fascinating experience. One of the reasons for this has been the recent preoccupation or fascination in Australia with the spoilage yeast brettanomyces. While I didn’t recognise the character for what it was until around five years ago, there’s little doubt that brett played a major role in identifying the style of Lake’s Folly red until relatively recently. In this tasting, brett was readily evident in the majority of vintages between 1972 and 1995. Although some people like Peter Scudamore-Smith MW of Brisbane find themselves becoming involuntarily ill even at the merest whiff of the trail of the organism, some of these wines have indeed held up particularly well. They might be technically flawed, but some are very interesting, complex and drinkable to my palate.

‘I like some of these wines despite what I now know about them’, says new Folly winemaker Rodney Kempe. Kempe is a talented young, but experienced Hunter winemaker in whose hands I believe Lake’s Folly will move from strength to strength. He joined the company in 2000, the same year it was bought by Perth-based businessman Peter Fogarty. Fogarty is aware that many a young winemaker would love to have a spell at Lake’s Folly recorded on their cv, but was determined if possible to find someone with Hunter experience and a fair measure of winemaking passion. Kempe wears his job with pride, and isn’t the sort of guy to up and leave at the next offer.

Rather than make significant redevelopments to Lake’s Folly, Rodney Kempe has spent his time and attention in a fine-tuning sort of a mode. In the vineyard, he’s stopped the use of herbicides entirely, choosing instead to cultivate under the vines to keep weeds in control. The aeration this high-maintenance activity this provides also stimulates vine roots foraging for nutrients. He also prefers to hoick the occasional green tree frog out from the crushing bin – whose presence suggests a healthy ecosystem in the vineyard – ahead of spraying pesticides.
While he’s never going to be exactly sure if there’s any particular factor in that causes it, such is the balance found at Lake’s Folly’s vineyard that the amount of acid adjustment the wines require – typically half a gram per litre for chardonnay and between 0.5-1.0 grams for the red – is significantly lower than the norm found in the Hunter Valley.

While he is happy to maintain Lake’s Folly’s tradition of preventing malolactic fermentation in its Chardonnay, Kempe has modified some of the winemaking practices of his predecessor, Stephen Lake, firstly by electing not to give the red wines extended maturation on gross lees. This removes a significant risk of microbial spoilage from the winemaking, and gives Kempe more control of procedures like malolactic fermentation, which then begins with a relatively clean and microbially stable wine. Kempe is also a fan of racking the red every three to four months, which he says helps to retain freshness and vibrancy. Instead, Stephen Lake had preferred to keep the barrels bedded down without much movement during a 12-14 month period.
There’s also little doubt that the recent introduction of petit verdot to the blend, which was certainly on Stephen Lake’s master plan, has contributed to the brightness, accent and spiciness of its aroma, as well as to its sweetness of fruit and depth of flavour. The 2001 vintage comprises 20 petit verdot, in addition to 60 cabernet sauvignon and 10 of each of shiraz and merlot.

Rodney Kempe is a very modest and honest operator, and believes we have yet to see the best from Lake’s Folly. I can’t see any reason why he won’t be proven correct. Please login to post comment