Tomfoolery has carved out a name for itself over the last few years and shows up at more and more of Australia’s premier wine shops.  It is one of the growing brigade of small winemakers in Australia trying new and interesting things and getting some pretty powerful results.
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Winemaking at Tomfoolery is driven by the fruit. These guys are laser-focused on choosing very specific grapes from very specific small parcels. (For this reason, they draw from multiple vineyards and not just their own.) After the right fruit is gotten, the winemaking process is fairly minimalist in intervention, and the result is a suite of wines that powerfully reflect their terroir and Tomfoolery’s fruit selection prowess. When you try some of their wines, you’ll see what we’re talking about.

Young Blood is Tomfoolery’s “drink now” / “entry-level” range, but don’t assume any connotation with those adjectives. While in the past “drink now” implied “cheap” and/or “lower quality”, we note that more and more AUS winemakers are producing “drink now” wines that are far more expressive than the typical “cellar forever” “premium” wines (in fact, we preferred the Young Blood Shiraz to its older, more oaked, and more expensive Tomfoolery brother). Young Blood wines spend only six months in the barrel (half steel and half old oak), so the fruit really couldn’t speak much louder in these wines.

We find Tomfoolery’s wines solid and interesting.  Most are quite good, but to our palates, they can actually lack that little bit of winemaking intervention that can turn great into perfect.  This is probably why we prefer the drink now range … the fruit is ripe and fresh and sings loudly.