Great value red wines!
We're thrilled to see a nice article in The Australian today, singing the praises of these three great value wines, our Bernoota amongst them!
The boys all get a nice mention as Roger explains our philosophy on making great value wines at Lake Breeze.
read all about it here:
The Australian Wine Club: Great value red wines on offer from Lake Breeze, Jim Barry and Vanguardist
written by John Lehmann & Tom Smithies
"Our wine writing colleague Nick Ryan called out an enduring mystery in his selection of best wines this month when he remarked on the virtues of Lake Breeze’s $22 Bernoota Shiraz Cabernet from Langhorne Creek.
“I don’t know how they do it,” Ryan wrote in the Drinks Issue of The Weekend Australian Magazine.
The consistent quality of the Bernoota, at just a touch over $20 a bottle, has made this classic Aussie blend one of The Australian Wine Club’s most popular wines over many years.
So it’s about time we do ask: How do they do it? “We don’t pay ourselves too much,” jokes Lake Breeze managing director Roger Follett, who runs the family business with his two brothers, winemaker Greg and vineyard manager Tim.
“We do try to keep our overheads low: Greg makes wine from about 400 tonnes of grapes with only one cellar hand helping and it’s only Tim and one other guy looking after 230 acres (90ha) of vineyards. We’re all very hands-on and that does keep our overheads under control.”
Lake Breeze’s Bernoota, from the exceptional 2021 vintage, is one of three high-class reds – all named among Ryan’s top 40 red wines of the year – bundled together in the wine club’s deal of the week, available in a six-pack or by the dozen.
Along with the Bernoota, you’ll find the 95-point Vanguardist Oeno Grenache, crafted from McLaren Vale fruit by a brilliant winemaker, and a single-vineyard cabernet sauvignon from the home of Clare Valley’s Jim Barry that would find a merry spot on anyone’s Christmas table.
We’ve included Ryan’s notes for the Vanguardist grenache and Jim Barry cabernet below, but first back to Langhorne Creek and the story of Lake Breeze.
The Follett family has had grape growing in its blood since love drew Roger’s great-grandfather, Arthur Follett, to the region in the 1890s to marry Alice Fairweather, the daughter of an early settler, William Hill.
The couple planted the first grapes on the property and the family continued to produce and sell the fruit from these old vines until 1987 when Roger’s parents, Ken and Marlene, insisted they hold back some cabernet sauvignon grapes to create their own wine and label.
Ken and Marlene had overseen an expansion of Lake Breeze’s vineyards in the 1960s and ’70s, with sizeable tracts of cabernet and shiraz planted. The cabernet’s quality was regarded so highly that Penfolds used the fruit in prestigious wines such as Bin 707 and Bin 389.
Nowadays Lake Breeze selects the best fruit from the older vines for its award-winning wines, such as the Bernoota, an Aboriginal word for “camp among the gumtrees” and the name given to the original homestead on the property, where Ken and Marlene still live.
“As a family we’ve always wanted to offer great value in our wines,” Roger says. “We’re also very fortunate to have been working here as a family for 130-odd years, which means we aren’t having to pay off our vineyards.”
Lake Breeze, rated five red stars in the Halliday Wine Companion, is situated on the shores of the Bremer River, which feeds into South Australia’s colossal Lake Alexandrina.
Greg says one of Langhorne Creek’s great assets for winemakers is the Southern Ocean breeze that sweeps across Lake Alexandrina – about three times the size of Sydney Harbour – which helps create a cool climate, allowing for a long and even ripening period.
“When you look at the great cabernet wine regions of the world – places like Bordeaux, Margaret River and Coonawarra – they all have that maritime climate,’’ Greg says. “People forget that when it’s 35 degrees at 5 o’clock in the afternoon in places like the Barossa and McLaren Vale, it’s 23 degrees down here.”
So with the Bernoota mystery solved, let’s hope the Follett boys don’t ask for too big a pay rise ..."
