Tahbilk - history, wine and tourism
"a winery that breathes history." James Halliday
On our way back from Victoria's high country we stopped off at Nagambie to visit two contrasting vineyards - Tahbilk, shown above, a historic vineyard that dates back to 1860 and Mitchellton which is ultra modern. And more about that on another post. Today I am talking about Tahbilk.
With respect to personal history I have not been there since the 70s, when my parents were visiting Australia. And I dug out some photos of this visit. Even then it was an old and respected vineyard/winery about halfway up, maybe less, the Hume Highway in Victoria. The Hume Highway being the main road between Melbourne and Sydney, and now a four lane highway/freeway for all of its length in Victoria and most of it in NSW. Back in the 70s, when mini-skirts were in, as can be seen from the two photos below, Chateau Tahbilk, as it was then known was at the forefront of the boom in the wine industry in Australia, having been a going concern since 1860 and a family concern since 1925 when Reginald Purbrick bought it. It is still owned by the same family, and the current 'boss' seems to be a woman.
The cellar door where you go to taste the wines is halfway along the buildings in the picture above, and hasn't changed all that much in that time. What has changed a little is the sign above the door - because the name itself has changed. And I think the picture on the sign has changed slightly too. Click on the pictures and you will see.
Fundamentally this building and the cellars beneath it have not changed very much at all. It looks ancient and the family has very cleverly retained the look and the feel. History is evident. You can go down into the cellars - taking heed of the sign to beware of snakes and absorb the smell of the maturing wine in the casks, as well as admiring the massive wooden beams that hold it all together.
The wine tasting area is also suitably historic with old bits of wine-making equipment, old photographs and information about the history of the estate.
So tourist points one and two - history - quite a bit to see, and wine that is worth tasting. At the top of the tree are its two prestige wines - the 1860 vines Shiraz and the 1927 vines Marsanne.
"Its 1860 Vines Shiraz is made from vines that were all planted in 1860, with no replacement vines to fill gaps created by vines dying through disease – or frost, as in 2007, when 40% of the vines were killed. The result is that in a good year, production will only be 150 dozen. After 18 months’ maturation in French oak, the wine is bottled and held in the Tahbilk cellars for four years before release. It is exquisitely rare liquid history and of great quality."
Then there are current favourites like verdelho, viognier and pinot gris, as well as the traditional shiraz, cabernets, rieslings and their trademark marsanne and roussanne, but so far none of the more experimental 'new' varieties such as the Italian and Spanish varieties so current elsewhere.
Back in the 19th century the estate was in the hands of a Frenchman - François Couslant, after whom they name their bubbly wines. He was responsible for its early 'golden age' according to the Tahbilk story booklet that I picked up. He was also responsible for adding Chateau to the name and, they think, adding the h to tabilk to make tahbilk. Nobody really seems to know why these two things happened - to make it sound more European perhaps. And it was so successful that by 1990 their wines were often sold in the French section of wineshops which frustrated Alister Purbrick - great- grandson of the original Purbrick, so that he dropped the chateau from the name. Although judging from the label below this wasn't until maybe 2000.
It may have been around this time that the label changed too - or maybe that happened later. Certainly although the font is more or less the same, the labels are much cleaner looking, (dare I say boring?), as you can see from the pictures above.
Mind you, whilst we are still on labels, they also have the Dalfarras range of wines which are illustrated with paintings from Alister Purbrick's Italian wife Rosa. And I now discover that the range of Dalfarras wines is much more experimental in terms of grapes. Here you will find Arneis, Sangiovese, Albarino, Vermentio, Rosato, Nero d'Avola and Mourvèdre. I think they are a cheaper range too - and seem to be almost a separate company with their own website. The same family though, so I'm not sure how that works. I don't remember them being available for tasting at the cellar door.
But the wine is really just a part of what the modern day Tahbilk winery is all about, for these days to survive you need to do more than grow grapes and make wine. The thing that really hit me as we wended our way through a few kilometres worth of vineyards, was the sheer size of the property. I simply do not remember it being as big. So I thought there was another exit - and indeed there was - we had come in the back way - but this exit was equally long, although it passed more through the wetlands than the vineyards. I know one's memory is not a trustworthy thing but I would bet that the original entrance was at the end of this driveway.
And the property is indeed huge.
"The property itself comprises some 1,214 hectares of rich river flats with a frontage of 11 kms to the Goulburn River and 8 kms of permanent backwaters and creeks." Tahbilk website
This aerial photograph shows just part of it. And the Purbrick family have made the most of it in terms of tourist opportunities. There is, of course, a restaurant/café on the river. It is beautiful and the food is good. But it is the wetlands themselves that are the star of the show.
They are simply stunning. I took more photos of the billabongs and the river than of the winery itself. I had not realised at the time that you could go on walks through them, but I was aware that you could take a boat trip. You could spend a whole day here exploring. The name Tahbilk comes from the original aboriginal table-tabilk, which means 'land of many waterholes'.
All that is missing is accommodation. Maybe it's on the agenda for future development.
I should close by saying that the company is also carbonZero certified, and were the first company to be so recognised in the country. I'm not sure exactly what they have done to achieve this, but you can probably read all about it on their excellent and informative website.
"It was recognised by previous generations that we are ultimately farmers whose produce is affected by a changing climate. We now need to do our part to ensure that we are assisting to create a moderate growing climate for our product, to ensure its longevity and quality continues. As custodians of the Estate we have an environmental responsibility to leave a sustainable legacy for those family members to come."
The website and the excellent booklet were the main sources of my information, so I suppose in a sense everything I have found is biased. Whether you like their wines or not is, of course, a matter of personal taste. But as a day out excursion from Melbourne I would highly recommend it. As I said - you could easily spend a day here or a weekend. I'm sure you could find accommodation to suit in the Nagambi area - and Mitchellton Winery certainly has a very luxurious small hotel.
I trust they are doing well. They have certainly been around for a very long time, and appear to be one of the few remaining independent wineries. It certainly looked prosperous, but it wasn't all that busy. But then it was midweek and not school holidays. And the Marsanne is certainly an Australian icon.
