Max Lake planted Cabernet Sauvignon here in 1963, the first new vineyard in the Hunter that century, and the estate has kept a deliberately narrow focus ever since. It still makes just two wines, a Cabernet blend and a Chardonnay, both grown and made on the single Broke Road site from estate fruit alone. Rodney Kempe has been chief winemaker since 2000, the year the Fogarty family took ownership, and total production sits around 4,500 cases.
A tasting is $10 a head and runs ten to fifteen minutes across the current-release Cabernets and Chardonnay, and the fee comes off a purchase. The room is small, so groups are capped at six and the doors close once the wine sells out. It opens 10am to 4pm seven days, and walk-ins are fine outside the holiday periods, when a booking is the safer bet. Gourmet Traveller WINE named it one of Australia's Best Cellar Doors in 2017.
At this cellar door
- Tasting
- Cellar-door tastingBooking requiredBuy on site
Photos
Tasting experiences
- Cellar Door Tasting$10pp
The current release Cabernets and Chardonnay.
Redeemable against a single purchase, to a limit of $10 per purchase.
How does this compare? See the Hunter Valley Cellar Door Price Index
A-List Membership
Join ↗An allocation list letting members secure Lake's Folly wine ahead of the annual release; enrolment is by application and the page states no pricing, frequency or benefits detail.
The estate
- Winemaker
- Rodney Kempe
- Ownership
- Owned by the Fogarty family since 2000, part of Fogarty Wine Group
- Australia's Best Cellar Doors, Gourmet Traveller WINEGourmet Traveller WINE · 2017
Getting here & good to know
Lake's Folly is at 2416 Broke Road, Pokolbin, in the Hunter Valley wine country.
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Nearby places to visit
Details last checked 2026-09-12.