THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
1938 CHÂTEAU TAHBILK 5X CLARET Goulburn Valley, Victoria
The 1938 Château Tahbilk 5X Claret was described by Australian wine writer Walter James in 1952 as ‘one of the most perfect claret-type wines ever produced in Australia’. It was made from ‘red-grape press wine, purchased young and matured by Mr W Nairn, then Victorian manager for McWilliams wines’. Max Lake also mentioned the wine as an all- time great. In 1952, it was already ‘no longer to be seen’. This is an example of how time diminishes reputation. Clearly, it was something of a celebrity wine of its day. Max Lake described it as ‘one of the most reverently recalled wines in the country’.
. . . Although Coonawarra suffered spring frosts (and the loss of 75% of its crop), 1938 was one of the largest and most successful South Australian vintages in 20 years. In Victoria, vignerons were more cautious in their assessment, with reports suggesting satisfactory yields but certainly not bumper crops. The quality, still, was excellent, with young Great Western wines showing all ‘the characteristics of delicacy and breeding’, as noted in the story ‘Great Western Vintage’ in Melbourne’s Age , 30th of April 1938. The legendary reputation of the 1938 Australian vintage soon gathered pace, although further north, an unfolding drama was taking place in northeast Victoria. A 15-year-old girl had disappeared from her Melbourne home. In February 1938, The Argus reported that she had been found, dressed as a boy, picking grapes at the Taminick Vineyard near Glenrowan. Aside from the 1938 Château Reynella Vintage Reserve Burgundy and the massively successful 1938 Château Tahbilk 5X Claret, other standout wines from the vintage included Yalumba Hock, Lindeman’s Cawarra Claret, and Lindeman’s Hunter River Burgundy. The remarkable Raymond Postgate (1896–1971), self- described as ‘Chancelier d’Ambassade pour La Grande Bretagne’ in his 1951 book The Plain Man’s Guide to Wine , wrote that the brace of 1938s ‘could stand beside all but the best of French wines. They had what is rare outside western Europe – a bouquet.’ Postgate, a renowned socialist, journalist, author, and pacifist during World War I, was the founder of Britain’s Good Food Guide , which grew out of his Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Food. (His son Oliver would later become one of the creators of “The Clangers” and “Ivor the Engine” on children’s television during the 1970s.)
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