The fortunes of Coonawarra as a region have waxed and waned, and while you could apply iconic to particular wines as a representative symbol of the district, Coonawarra is probably too commonplace to qualify as anything other than very well known.
Legends, of course, are basically stories, particularly traditional stories sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated, and it was the stories that went with the other names mentioned above that did a lot to attract Hughesy's attention. There was the unnamed French wine expert who was allegedly carted around the country from region to region, sampling the best of what was on offer and finding most of them lacking in comparison with their classic continental counterparts until he tried a Rutherglen Muscat. Mon dieu! (or Sacre bleu! or words to that effect), he allegedly exclaimed. I have never tasted anything like this in my life and it is magnificent.
The story may or may not be true, but it did plenty to shape some of Hughesy's tasting priorities.
Associated with that story, I noted the existence of stocks of aged Muscat in Rutherglen, incredibly thick, viscous wines with the consistency of ice cream topping and best sampled from a teaspoon, and the possibility of doing so if someone like Bill Chambers considered you worthy.
I didn't get to Rosewood on my first visit to Rutherglen because I wasn’t in charge of the itinerary and the driver didn't head that way, but I suspect I wouldn't have been considered worthy, so I wasn't too bothered by the omission.
We were back in Rutherglen in December '06. This time I made sure we got there, and was mildly gobsmacked to find the legendary winemaker present behind the counter in the Cellar Door as a steady stream of visitors came and went. Most of them, I suspected, were either unaware of, or chose to ignore, the presence of someone who definitely qualifies as a living legend. He mightn't be among the eighty photographs at http://www.richardsimpkin.com.au/Australian-Legends/80-Names.htm but one suspects he wouldn't be far off.
When it came to stories about wine that caught Hughesy's attention it's hard to top the one about micro surgeon Max Lake sharing a 1930′s Penfolds Hunter Cabernet Petit Verdot with Dan Murphy and Johnny Walker. Lake's enthusiasm for the wine prompted the suggestion that he'd love to have a try at replicating the style. The suggestion was, for all practical purposes, laughed off by the other two because you couldn't make decent Cabernet in the Hunter. Max Lake apparently refined his ambition towards what became Australia's first boutique winery, and reactions to his stated intent to produce two wines, a Cabernet blend and a straight Chardonnay prompted the choice of Lake's Folly as the name for the enterprise.
A fling with The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter, who'd come out of a divorce with a house, a cellar with stocks of Lake's Folly whites and reds and a spot on the mailing list gave me the chance to sample these truly legendary drops fairly early on, but when we lobbed in the Hunter in early December 2005 I duly noted the location of the winery even though I had no expectation that we'd actually get there.
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