“We turned up at the rustic Tahbilk winery and settled in to taste three varietals that were the current release compared with wine bottled some time ago,” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

Some years ago, two friends of mine moved from Duffy to Euroa, a quiet country town north of Melbourne.

It was time for a visit: it had been five years between drinks and we had a lovely catch up over the Easter break.

Old friends matter. With them, I reminisced about when I was young and my father put me and my little sister inside car tyres and rolled us down the hill; they were the goodyears. 

The following day on the way to Beechworth for bushwalking with my son and, hopefully, a visit to some wineries, we decided to drop in at Tahbilk, a 40-minute drive from Euroa near the town of Nagambie.

This visit was in large part motivated by some marketing material I’d received telling me that there was a special tasting at the winery, which marked the Purbrick family’s 100-year ownership of the Tahbilk winery. 

On offer was a side-by-side comparison of current estate releases and limited Centennial Release wines, some of which had aged for 10 years. 

We turned up at the rustic winery and settled in to taste three varietals that were the current release compared with wine bottled some time ago.

First was the marsanne: wines made from vines planted in 1927, and which are now among the oldest in the world. Marsanne is from the Northern Rhone Valley in France, a dry white wine that ages well and can be cellared for up to 15 years. 

It changes markedly as it ages. This was evident from the tasting of the 2024 Tahbilk Marsanne, which was bright, with floral aromatics as well as a hint of lemon peel on the nose, quite light in colour. It was fruity on finish albeit not at all claggy.

In comparison the 2015 Centennial Release Marsanne was more golden in colour and had an aroma of toasted nuts. It had a pronounced minerality on the palate and finished with a hint of pear, like an arneis.

If I’d tasted these wines blind I would not have recognised the Centennial as a Marsanne. The distinct results of ageing were remarkable, just like when I’m having breakfast and hear snap, crackle, pop but I’m not eating cereal. 

The 2024 Tahbilk Riesling was crisp with strong acid lines and with citrus on the nose and the palate. The 2017 Centennial Release Riesling was textural, soft and herbaceous with petrol/kerosene in the mix that is often a characteristic of aged riesling.

In my understanding, this taste arises because wine grapes, like many other plants, contain carotenoids, a class of pigment. They give colour to many plants such as bananas and carrots, and they are what’s believed to cause the relevant aroma compound in wine following their ageing.

Riesling grapes have more carotenoids than other grapes, so have the highest chance of showing those distinctive aromas.

The 2021 shiraz was compared with the 2015 Centennial Release Old Block Shiraz. The latter wine is from 110-year-old vines and was in French oak for 18 months. 

While the 2021 had a good mix of savoury flavours and a lovely dark plum finish, it was my least favourite wine of the tasting. But the 2015 was great: dark cherry, herbaceous and mouth filling. On second try, it was earthy and would pair wonderfully well with mushrooms. I bought three bottles. 

“Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson