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The 1890s brought boom years to the nascent Aussie wine industry, as connoisseurs throughout Europe and the Empire were introduced to the Dionysian delights of new world Claret by Tyrrell, St Huberts and Wirra Wirra. An enterprising family of Scots took heed of the times to plant grapevines on a uniquely auspicious block in Valley Clare, they called it St Andrew and produced forty vintages of the most sensational quality Claret until the 1930s. The Taylor family acquired the fallow farm in 1995 and brought St Andrew's vines back to life. The treasured block endures as home to the flagship range of Taylor wines, one of the most distinguished vineyards in all Australia. St Andrew's Cabernet was.. *according to the french»
David Wynn introduced cardboard wine casks, flagons and the Airlesflo wine tap to the nation. He is best remembered for re packaging the Coonawarra estate which bears his name and which endures as one of Australia's icon brands. Wynn was a master of his craft and studied oenology at the world renowned Magill wineworks. An astute marketer and talented blender, he also had a keen eye for the land, investing in the ancient John Riddoch fruit colony and planting vines on a challenging site, high atop the lofty latitudes of Valley Eden. Mountadam Vineyards were built from the ground up, with a view to crafting a limited range of well structured, weighty wines, defined by fuller palates and saline, mineral.. The legacy parcels of mountadam vineyards»
The Australian winemaking industry is grateful to Leontine O'Shea, instrumental in the establishment of Mount Pleasant wines, she sent her son Maurice to France for an education in viticulture right at the outbreak of World War I, gifting him his first Hunter Valley vineyard in 1921. Mount Pleasant are now custodians of some grand old sites, a canon of small, elite blocks of vine that yield a precious range of icon wines, which represent peerless value and readily disappear before release of the following vintage... The legacy of grand old hunter valley vineyards»
Tahbilk
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Tahbilk
Established 1860, Tahbilk is one of Australia's most scenic and historic wineries

Located in the Nagambie Lakes region of central Victoria (120kms north of Melbourne), one of the nation's premium viticultural areas, the property 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 & creeks. The vineyard comprises 168 hectares of vines which include the rare Rhone whites of Marsanne, Viognier & Roussanne, along with classical varieties such as Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Chardonnay, Riesling, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc & Verdelho.

Tahbilk

Harvest commences in early March and continues for five to six weeks with approximately 1,600 tonnes of grapes processed. Total production is over 100,000 cases with just over 20% being exported to the key markets of U.S.A., United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries.

In 1860, the same year that Phylloxera was first observed in France, Melbourne businessmen, including John Pinney Bear, formed a company to create a vineyard on the Goulburn River, with the grand aim of planting a million vines, an achievement yet to be realised with some 360,000 vines currently planted! The site chosen was referred to by Aboriginals as tabilk-tabilk meaning the place of many waterholes.

Excavated in just 12 weeks by James Purbrick (a third cousin to Reginald who was to purchase Tahbilk some 50 years later), 20,000 cubic yards of soil was removed by horse drawn carts (one of which is on display in the original cart-sheds opposite Cellar Door). The walls and arch of the New Cellar are 3 feet thick with the arch being self-supporting (using no keystone) and then covered with earth. The bricks are interlocked as only sand and lime were used to join them together with the whole cellar completed in time for the 1876 vintage.

Tahbilk

The Swiss-French impact then continued with Francois Coueslant, considered in his day to be a most knowledgeable vigneron and progressive farm-manager, taking on the General Managers role from 1877 -1888. He was responsible for, amongst many innovations, the construction of the distinctive Tower (1882) that surmounts the original Winery building and features on current Tahbilk labels.

The Tower's first level played a functional role in winemaking until the 1940's. The second level was used as a storeroom for oats for the horses, with the third level described by Coueslant as "an observation room, from which you will be able to have an eye over all the vineyard, which fact may help the work a little". The upper level was purely aesthetic.

The advent of Phylloxera, a vine louse that attacks the roots of grape vines and which decimated the European vineyards & Victoria's burgeoning Wine industry of the day, coupled with the death of John Pinney Bear and departure of Coueslant, lead to a period of decline in the fortunes of Tahbilk. In 1925 Reginald Purbrick, entrepreneur and later Member of the British House of Commons, purchased the property from the Bear family with the idea of rooting out all vines and subdividing it into dairy farms. Finally persuaded that the winery was viable he offered it to his son Eric, then a law and history student at Cambridge University, who took over management and winemaking responsibilities in 1931.

Faced with the dual problems of the Great Depression and lack of public interest in table wine, as well as his own viticultural inexperience, Eric succeeded in becoming an innovator in the wine industry and was the first to market bottled wine under its varietal name in Australia. Eric was joined by his son John in 1955, and John's son Alister - a graduate of the Winemaking Course at Roseworthy College, took over the role as winemaker and General Manager in 1978 and continues to this day.

Tahbilk