In 2004 Foggo wines won the Australian Boutique Winemakers wineshow award for the best wine of the show with the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. Foggo wines also won best estate grown and produced, and best Cabernet Sauvignon of the show. 

Foggo Wines is hands-on from grape-growing to winemaking gives Foggo Wines a quality assurance tick: "By managing the entire process we are able to maintain the integrity of the brand," says Herb. "Our wines show superiority of vineyard site." They emerge from their own estate vineyards in McLaren Vale from some of the region's oldest plantings.

Foggo Wines McLaren Vale vineyard was chosen because of its reliable Mediterranean climate and maritime influences their Shiraz on the winery block on Foggo Road is the oldest, dating back to 1915, the Grenache 1925 and the cabernet some 60 yrs old.

Foggo Wines team, Herb and Sandie Van De Wiel, second generation growers are a complete hands on operation in McLaren Vale from pruning and picking to hand plunging and lees stirring even blending, bottling and labelling are done on the estate by this dynamic duo.

The reds are made for the long haul, with excellent structure and ageing ability. As well as power and opulence, Foggo Reds have a finesse and elegance that set them apart.

"We pick to taste so we're looking for primary fruit characters in the vineyard once we have those, the complexity of the fruit off the old vines and their incredible structure provides a balanced wine, even though alcohol levels can be high, we don't get any hot or jammy characters".

Intensity and concentration of flavour is high as 70 per cent of the vineyards are dry grown, with yields varying from as low as 3/4 tonne per acre to four tonnes per acre, depending on the season.

The dedication to single vineyard uniqueness follows through to small batch winemaking. While tank farms spring up all over Australia, Herb and Sandie have resorted to just four stainless steel open fermenters while everything else is fermented in hogsheads complete with their own heading down boards to keep the skin cap under the juice for better colour and extraction.

"We ferment almost everything in barrel, so we have to rack and press each one iindividually at the end of ferment," Herb said." The beauty of this is when we blend the wine, we have dozens of unique parcels to choose from to make our final blends. This ensures that quality control remains high".

"We find that fermenting in the barrel makes the wines softer and more approachable at a young age, while maintaining complexity and longevity," Herb says.

We use quality French and American Oak to mature and finish the winemaking process.