Best Value Winery of the Year

LAKE BREEZE | LANGHORNE CREEK | SOUTH AUSTRALIA

THIS YEAR’S BEST Value Winery award comes as a long-awaited affirmation for the Lake Breeze team. The Follett family has been custodians of their Langhorne Creek property since 1850, making their foray into viticulture with vineyards planted on the bank of Lake Alexandrina in the late 1880s. The brand has since grown slowly but steadily, accumulating an extraordinary number of trophies and medals across their wine portfolio – with a top-end price of just $80. After an appearance in our Top 10 Best Value Wineries of 2020, Lake Breeze has finally taken out the major award for a category that it wholeheartedly exemplifies.

“When I found out we had won, I was in quarantine after going to the wrong football game in Melbourne, so I needed some good news,” says winemaker Greg Follett. “With winemaking, you can judge success to a degree, but it’s always nice to get the reassurance that you’re on the right path. Our ethos has always been value for money, and we work hard to over-deliver on quality.”

Greg runs the business with brothers Tim and Roger, who work as vineyard manager and general manager respectively. Their father Ken, a third-generation vigneron, is still involved with the winery, alongside wife and Follett family matriarch Marlene. “Our family’s business goes back six generations, but the first wine we ever made and sold was in 1987 – a cabernet sauvignon,” Greg says.

“I studied winemaking at Roseworthy from the late ’80s through to 1990 while tinkering and getting a little wine made from our vineyard on the side. At the time, we sold most of our grapes to Penfolds and Wolf Blass, until March ’91 when we opened our cellar door. That was the official start of Lake Breeze.” The brand is named after the cooling afternoon breeze that rolls off Langhorne Creek’s Lake Alexandrina, responsible for milder temperatures than its neighboring regions of Barossa and McLaren Vale. “Climatically, we’re really blessed,” Greg says. “We tend to have a slightly longer growing season and therefore more ability to develop flavour. We nestle between warm and cool climate, which allows a real depth and richness to our wines, while retaining brightness, elegance and structure.”

This year, Lake Breeze has four wines under $20 scoring 90 to 95 points, and four wines under $30 scoring 92 to 97 – plus a nomination for Cabernet Sauvignon of the Year alongside wines almost 20 times the price. “We’ve always been conservative when it comes to costs, growing the business only as we could pay for what we needed next. We’re farmers first and foremost. We just want people to open a bottle of our wine and go ‘Wow!’”