HUNTER VALLEY LEGENDS

Fay McGuigan has worked tirelessly promoting Hunter Valley wines to the export market, and was considered one of the leaders in the export of Australian wine to the world.

Fay earned her reputation as an export manager during the pioneering days of export in the late 1970s, when she and her husband, Brian, ventured to start their own company, Wyndham Estate. She is hailed as an ambassador of Australian and Hunter Valley wine overseas, and has won many awards and accolades such as the Australia Export Award, Centenary of Federation Medal, and the Hunter Valley Wine Industry Living Legends Award, including recognition as Australian Exporter of the Year.

Fay was one of the early pioneers of export and has been hailed an Ambassador of Australian wine in overseas markets, as well as instrumental in the growth of Australian wine exports generally.  Her involvement in the export industry has been recognised on a number of occasions, and in 1998 she was awarded the New South Wales Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award for the AusIndustry section. 

Fay is renowned for her hospitality and generosity, opening her home to look after international guests when they visit the Hunter.

Fay firmly believes that some of the great strengths of Australian wines are modern winemaking and viticulture techniques used throughout the Australian Wine Industry; our ability to produce wines of intense flavour, and in particular having the right packaging, quality, price and flavour to present to our overseas customers.  The McGuigan family have been in the Wine Industry for four generations (60 years).

Fay McGuigan was inducted as a Legend in 2009.

HUNTER VALLEY LEGENDS

Brian McGuigan established his position as one of Australia’s foremost winemakers and marketers when he founded the Wyndham Estate Wine Company at Dalwood in the Hunter Valley in the 1970’s. As Managing Director of the Wyndham Estate Group he built one of the most successful wine companies in Australia. 

Following the sale of Wyndham in 1991 Brian established a new company; Brian McGuigan Wines, in 1992 through a publicly listed company. In the fifteen years that he was a Managing Director of the Company growth has been extraordinary, with total sales approaching 10 million cases. Brian’s faith in Australia to produce premium quality wines is evidenced by the fact that the McGuigan Company now controls and manages some 18,500 acres of vines throughout Australia putting it amongst the top grape growers in Australia and the world. Exports continue to be a major focus of the McGuigan Wines operation. At present in excess of 67% of total production is allocated to satisfy the demands of the International market. The success of McGuigan Wines in Europe, USA and New Zealand has been outstanding and with the quality of McGuigan Wines supported by their policy of controlling their own vineyards the future of export sales seems assured.

Brian McGuigan was inducted as a Legend in 2008.

HUNTER VALLEY LEGENDS

Alain Le Prince's story is of a successful migrant who arrived in Australia in 1971 with his wife Jeni with a dream of growing grapes and making fine wine! In the early 1970’s Alain paved his way working in the vineyard at Rothbury Estate, as Vineyard Manager for Tyrrell’s Wines and planting and managing his own Chardonnay vineyard in Pokolbin.

From 1980 to 2000, Alain became a partner at “Terrace Vale Wines” where his role in the wine industry had expanded from vineyard manager to winemaker and sales manager. Alain’s wines have won numerous accolades and he has remained involved in the wine industry for over 40 years. 

Alain Le Prince was inducted as as a Legend in 2016.

HUNTER VALLEY LEGENDS

Doctor Max Lake - Surgeon, winemaker, writer and bon vivant.  Doctor Max Lake was a truly amazing individual - Australia’s first specialist hand surgeon, and later a true giant of the Australian Wine Industry.  Max established Australia’s first boutique winery, Lakes Folly, in the Hunter Valley, on his ‘weekends off’. Widely regarded as the ‘father of the Australian Boutique Wine Industry’, in 1988 The Bulletin Magazine referred to Max as “the man who started the Australian wine boom”.

Born in 1924 to an American mother and Australian father, Max was brought up in a cosmopolitan Sydney household – his father running the Australian division of movie studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer.  At the tender age of 16, Max commenced his medical studies at The University of Sydney, and published his first paper, on the hypothalamus, when he was 18.  University was also where he met his wife-to-be, Joy Townsend, who was also studying medicine.  After graduating, he furthered his studies at the Royal College of Surgeons in England in the early 1950s, finishing top in his year.  Max Lake went on to have a 40-year career in medicine.

In his spare time, and in addition to lecturing, judging wine and beef among other things, Max wrote books - some twenty in total (self-publishing 14 of them) mostly on wine, food and surgery. Publications that included ‘Classic Wines of Australia’, ‘Vine and Scalpel’, ‘Scents and Sensuality’ and ‘Hunter Wine’, to name just a few.

But it was the establishment of a little winery in 1963 in Pokolbin, in the Hunter Valley, that possibly is regarded as his finest achievement.  In an era when fine wine production was scarcely considered, Max’s vision to create a boutique winery specialising in producing only two wines – those two being lesser-known varieties for the region, of Cabernet and Chardonnay – was regarded at that time, as a ‘folly’.  However, the cult following that was to ensue was beyond Max’s expectations and Lake’s Folly still enjoys the same loyal following to this day, with its red rated as the ‘Most Collected Cabernet’ in Australia and the white the second ‘Most Collected’ Chardonnay in Australia.

In 2002, Max was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), for “service to the establishment of the boutique wine industry in Australia as a winemaker, judge, promoter and author”. 

Max Lake passed away, aged 84, on the 14^th of April 2009.

Not just a legend by Hunter Valley standards, Max was an icon of the Australian Wine Industry;  a trailblazer and pioneer, the likes of which may not be seen again.  But his legacy remains, and will continue into the future through Lake’s Folly.

Max Lake was inducted as a Legend in 2007.