In lieu of a question from one of our Wine Club Members, Kait Carracher, who is new to our Cellar Door team, asked our winemaking team . . . . .
“What is the difference between how the ‘regular’ Tahbilk Marsanne is made and the 1927 Vines releases?”

Our ‘regular’ Marsanne is sourced from five ‘Blocks’ (or plantings) and each is picked at a range of ripeness levels so that we have not only different flavour components from the different blocks, but different flavour profiles from within each.

The grapes are picked in the cool of the night and the fruit is processed as quickly as possible, excluding oxygen from the juice and wine wherever we can, in the process of cool fermentation followed by stabilisation, filtration and bottling; to retain a “freshness” and highlight the primary fruit characters.

Our ‘1927 Vines’ Marsanne are sourced entirely from our ‘Madill’s Block’ planted in that year and is made quite differently.

In the early 90’s we decided we would look to making a ‘premium’ Marsanne which would age for 10 to 20 years, or more.
We started by picking small parcels of ripe fruit and fermenting in new French oak much like how we treated Chardonnay at the time.
After 3 or 4 years we tasted these wines and it was obvious that they wouldn’t age well, not even as well as our standard Marsanne.

So we changed tack and looked to our forebears for inspiration.
In the 1950’s and 60’s Marsanne was made very differently. It was picked less ripe back then – they had to start early or they wouldn’t get
through the vintage – and it was crushed and pressed with quite a bit of unavoidable oxidation, then fermented in the one and only stainless
steel tank they had.

Drawing on this history with Marsanne and, based on the fact that some of the most long lived Hunter Semillon’s are still made this way, we started this “new” approach in 1998 using Marsanne from our ‘1927 Block’ picked during the day at “champagne” ripeness i.e. much earlier than normal.

Fortuitously our hunch paid off (perhaps the old boys had been keeping an eye us from above), and although tasting like tart/water solutions when young, they developed into amazingly fresh but complex wines.

When the 1998 vintage won a Trophy at the 2005 Victorian Wines Show – we knew then we were onto something. The Trophy wins have continued - the next release 2003 ‘1927’ Vines Marsanne has just won its sixth!
Those old guys definitely knew a thing or two about making Marsanne.

We would encourage you to try both and see for yourself!

Cheers,

The Tahbilk Winemaking Team