Our Story

The Lowestoft homestead is one of Tasmania’s oldest, built around 1850. This magnificent property is situated on the banks of the picturesque Derwent River and overlooks the renowned Mona Museum art gallery and Moorilla Winery.

The property is located 15 minutes north west of Hobart in the Derwent Valley region. The low rainfall and cool temperatures allow long even ripening producing outstanding fruit. 

The Lowestoft vineyard is a small densely planted (8,300 vines per hectare) 3 hectare vineyard with some of the oldest Pinot Noir plantings in Tasmania. Originally planted in 1986, the grapes are some of the most sought after in the region.

Lowestoft wines channel the clarity of Tasmania’s cool climate into wines of precision and quiet luxury. Every wine feels sculpted by the southern air, offering an elegant, linear expression of Tasmania.Pinot Noir is the hero, silk-lined, aromatic and shaped by the island’s crisp evenings; while Chardonnay shows tension, fine acidity and a crystalline finish.

The wines have quickly earned acclaim for their purity and craftsmanship.

In the late 1800s most of the vines in Tasmania were pulled out, as conditions were considered too cold for wine grape production, and vineyard workers left Tasmania for the Victorian gold rush. It wasn’t until the mid-1950s that Claudio Alcorso restarted the Tasmanian wine industry in the south by planting 90 Riesling vines obtained from David Wynn in South Australia. In 1976 Alcorso and the Pirie brothers planted the first Pinot Noir vineyard.

In 1986, the then owner of Lowestoft, Bernard McKay, was asked to plant vines and supply fruit to Alcorso’s Moorilla Winery, located on the current Mona site opposite Lowestoft. The 3 hectare site was planted with 100% Pinot Noir sourced from Moorilla cuttings. When Moorilla was sold, viticulturist Fred Peacock began purchasing some of the Lowestoft grapes for use in his Bream Creek Reserve Pinot Noir with the rest sold to Treasury Wines and others.

In 2017, Fogarty Hall founder and Executive Chairman Peter Fogarty followed his passion for world-class Pinot Noir to cool climate Tasmania. It was around this time that Fogarty first became aware of the historic Lowestoft property and vineyard, although he did not purchase the estate until 2019. Alongside Lowestoft, Fogarty also acquired two other vineyards – Strelley Farm and Gilling Brook.

The Lowestoft name was chosen in recognition of Thomas Lowes, his magnificent homestead which he named "Lowestoft" and the site overlooking Lowestoft Bay.

The crest on the label, which forms part of the brand, is derived from the original Fogarty family crest which dates back to early Irish history and one of the Kings of Ireland (O’Fogarty, King of Ely, County Tipperary, 1072). The crest acknowledges our first forebearer to arrive in Australia, Patrick John Fogarty, in the mid-1800s, who is buried in Strahan, Tasmania.

Lowestoft now represents Fogarty Family Wine's luxury Tasmanian wines.