“Family owned wineries are an endangered species in the growing corporatisation of the wine industry,” bemoans wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

I was sent four bottles of Tahbilk wines as part of the winery’s promotional program.

Along with the wines came a media release about how the winery was giving an Australian family separated by distance, time or life’s pressures, the opportunity to reconnect at a lunch event at the winery in Nagambie, Victoria, in October. 

The competition (now closed) highlights that Australians are spending less time together face-to-face. 

According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2025 General Social Survey referred to in the media release, face-to-face contact with family and friends occurs about once a week, a significant decline from pre-pandemic levels.

Author Saroo Brierly will co-host the event. He is famous for his 25-year search for his birth family in India, which was the inspiration for the 2016 Australian directed film Lion. I must admit that when I saw this emotional biography, it was difficult to not tear up.

The Tahbilk winery has been owned and operated by the Purbrick family since 1925 and the event is being held to celebrate the importance of family. 

Family owned wineries are an endangered species in the growing corporatisation of the wine industry.

The upsurge in supermarket-owned wine brands has been one of the most significant developments in the Australian wine sector over the past two decades, a topic to be fully explored another day. Combining that trend with the fact that on a sales-value basis two companies, Treasury Wine Estates and Vinarchy, account for about half of the Australian wine market, it is a battle for smaller family wine owners to survive and to prosper.

So, in the current context, reinforcement of family and the importance of family connection is to be commended. We want family owned wineries to be able to survive to get the breadth of experience and the diversity of product that the Australian public deserves. 

One of the samples that Tahbilk sent me is a 1927 Vines Marsanne 2017 that costs around $45 a bottle. Four of us consumed this wine at a Thai restaurant at the Kingston Foreshore and mate Tom brought a Tahbilk Marsanne 2024 to compare with the 1927 Vines Marsanne. He had paid $18 for this more quotidian marsanne, bought from one of the large supermarket-controlled outlets, Dan Murphy’s. 

The Tahbilk winery is renowned for its marsanne. Despite this varietal’s origins in the Northern Rhone district of France, Tahbilk has the world’s largest single holding of marsanne first planted in 1927 vines from which the review wine was grown.

It is a dry white wine, often showing citrus flavours similar to riesling (in the case of the 2017, a bouquet of lime leaves overlaid with cut straw).

One of our number indicated that he thought the 1927 Vines finished like a riesling, but with greater complexity and less harsh acid than the last riesling he drank. The wine is clean on the palate and finishes fresh. 

The 1927 Vines, while having a pleasant acidity that cut through the Asian cooking, finished well, bright and satisfying, rather than harsh and astringent.

The 2024 marsanne was slightly more acidic on the finish and was not of the same depth of flavour as its more expensive cousin, albeit a pleasant quaffer. In short I’d recommend paying the extra money for the older wine, a very pleasant drinking experience. 

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 now, and we don’t know where the heck she is.
–Ellen DeGeneres, comedian

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