Tahbilk Marsanne '1927 Vines' 2016

96 POINTS:  Robert Parker’s – The Wine Advocate
95 POINTS: James Halliday

90-100 Year old vines.

"The 2016 1927 Vines Marsanne is a soft golden with pale lemon glints. It aromatically leads with torched lemongrass, scratched citrus, straw and crushed shells. In the mouth, the wine offers us a fresh, kaleidoscopic view of the potential of Marsanne. If anything, this feels fresher than some of the younger vintages of Tahbilk Marsanne I have reviewed recently, and I believe that is down to the “Benjamin Button”-like quality of this bottle-aged beauty—it gets younger as it goes along. Tahbilk was established in 1860, and these vines were planted considerably later, in 1927. The wine offers everything I am chasing: full flavor at lower alcohol, textural complexity, width and length of flavor through the finish and long-term cellaring prospects. This cuvée offers better depth of flavor and complexity than the estate bottling and, as an eight-year-old wine on release, offers sensational value for money."
- Robert Parker’s – The Wine Advocate

"Medium-bodied, with bright, citrussy acidity. Good intensity of flavour, still very much in the house style – lean and bone dry. Slight hint of toast coming through the smoky lime skin and grapefruit. Much lighter and more athletic than a Northern Rhône example, a very different expression: stylistically it's a cross between Crozes-Hermitage and Hunter Valley Semillon. Has more flinty depths than the winery's standard Marsanne. Feels like this is only starting to come into its own now, with a long life ahead."
- Decanter Magazine

These limited release wines are produced from the Estate’s 1927 planted Marsanne vines – some of the oldest in the world. “It evolves into a wonderful, textural, mineral wine ... it’s a classic ugly duckling to beautiful swan story. The beauty of making the wine this way is that it develops in the bottle very slowly and has long term cellaring potential.” Alister Purbrick - Winemaker

This is a pure, complex and intense wine, with notes of preserved lemon, honeysuckle and ginger on the nose. These aromatic notes follow through onto the palate, where fresh citrus provides focus and a hint of straw and notable minerality add to the infinite layers of flavour. This is delicious now but will also continue to age for many more years. Tahbilk is one of Australia's great traditional wineries and has a long and fascinating history. Marsanne is arguably what they are most famous for and this, produced from some of the oldest marsanne vines on the planet, is their most iconic white wine.