Tahbilk visit

Six years since the last visit to Tahbilk. This was a quick stop for lunch, without the chance to taste everything, so I picked just a few things I hadn’t already had before. Volumes of the 1860 Vines Shiraz are now so small (after so many vines were lost in the 2007 frost) that it’s no longer on tasting, and the price has more-or-less doubled to $200 a bottle. The 1927 Vines Marsanne wasn’t available to taste either (2002 vintage) ; I won’t buy this again until the corks are gone; that should be the 2003.

• 2011 Tahbilk Viognier

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap, 12.5%, A$14} Peach, apricot, floral fruit. Not over-the-top at all. Soft palate with a little spiced peach flavour; a perfumed touch. Light-medium body. Medium acid. Not powerful, but fresher than most local examples. A bit mild and dilute. No more than a quaffer. Fair.

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• 2008 Tahbilk Riesling

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap} Developing nose of light citrus with a kerosene touch. Light-bodied and dry, there are citrus and floral flavours past their youth and now broadening out. A front palate wine. Quite fruity without being at all sweet, it’s a fairly simple, short-finish effort which is hardly likely to wine converts to the grape. Drink up before the acid fades entirely.

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• 2010 Dalfarras Gewürztraminer Riesling

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Goulburn Valley

  {screwcap, 12%} Musk nose. The pink stuff! Floral, talcum-powder flavours; varietally gewurz-y. Light spicy flavours. Virtually dry, but with soft acid it needs a good chill. Light-bodied and rather short, it’s to be quaffed down on a summer night soon.

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• 2010 Tahbilk Chardonnay

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap, 12.5%} Another rather soft and dilute white from Tahbilk. A softly nutty nose precedes a matchstick-flavoured palate, light-medium-bodied, without great flavour, of fairly low intensity. Touch of subtle oak spice, that’s all. A very mild wine. You get the impression theses are very high yield grapes or well irrigated. An early drinker again.

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• 2011 Tahbilk Cabernet Franc

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap, 13%, A$14} Herbs and twiggy tree branches. Some tobacco. Quite subtle. Furry texture on palate; not much oak though, rather a chalky, grape-skin sort of sensation. Wiry, brambly, red-grape flavours make up a light-medium bodied palate which sits mostly of the front and middle of the tongue and has a medium-length, dry finish. A touch simple, but honest. Probably at best within 3 years.

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• 2011 Tahbilk Mourvèdre

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap, 13%,$A14} Earth, tobacco, compost. By new world standards, rustic. Dry palate, with soft gravelly tannins, light-body. Spiced cherry/raspberry flavours. Cranberry, perhaps. Open-knit and loose on the palate, fairly low intensity and with a simple clean finish. Better with food, better drink soonish.

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• 2009 Tahbilk Shiraz

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap, 13.5%, $A18} Young. Dark mulberries and plums. Restrained in the Tahbilk way. Palate is dense but not heavy, if that makes sense. Flavours all at the black end of the fruit spectrum. Some earth characters, but it’s not dirty. Gentle dusty tannins. Medium, dry finish. Still rather tight; wants a few years to open up. Good to see the alcohol back under control from the 15% of a few years ago.

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• 2009 Tahbilk Cabernet Sauvignon

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {screwcap, 13.5%, $A18} Pure and youthful nose of mulberry and currants. Medium, drying chalky tannins hint at the aging aspiration; it’s no fruit bomb, that’s certain. Herb and currant flavours are present in medium-bodied form, the back palate is a little soft; this will be better in 5 years at least.

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• 1997 Tahbilk Shiraz Old Block

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {cork, 13.5%, $A27} Aged, dusty old nose of leather polish and musty attics. The palate is medicinal and a touch bretty; still it’s quite velvety in texture, with gentle powdery tannins and medium acid. Medium bodied; it’s the drying tannins that linger on the finish. It’s OK, but just doesn’t quite hit the magic spot. On the other hand, and 15-year-old shiraz for $27 can’t be complained about too much. Ready to drink, needless to say.

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• 2006 Tahbilk Cabernet Sauvignon Eric Stevens Purbrick

  Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes

  {cork, 14%, $A53} Youthful nose of intense currants and plush plums. Little oak evident; it’s swallowed by tight fruit. The flavours are concentrated without being oversized; there’s a liqueured quality to the texture I often find the Tahbilk’s reserve reds. The palate’s highlighted by fine chalky tannins and a long balanced finish, buoyed by medium acidity; it’s medium-full bodied and ought to sail through ten years, if provenance is any guide.

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Most of Tahbilk’s cellar-door-only wines are rather old-fashioned and even dilute; but they’re well under $20 as well. The reserve reds are very good, but quite costly, being north of $50; fully three times the price of the regular releases. The marsanne (not tasted today) still remains the pick of the whites. The estate is always worth a visit; if I lived nearer Melbourne I’d be there every year, that’s certain.