Pooley Wines
Slick presentation, good glasses, but still an expensive experience at $5+ per wine beyond the six-for-$15 basic range tasting. Still, it does at least mean the flagships are available for a cost, unless sold out. If you can commit to a dozen wines a year via the wine club, fees are waived. Prices are CD walk-up; membership gets you 10% or 15% off, depending on volume commitment. The range continues to expand; ten years ago all the chardonnay fruit went to Penfolds for Yattarna, now there are four different bottlings, topping out with a $170 flagship.
- 2025 Pooley Pinot Grigio - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 12.5%, $42} Crisp apple & pear. Oakless but hint of skin texture. Maybe a little bland. Dry, medium acid, with a short/medium finish. Pricy for what it is - $25 would be better. - 2025 Pooley Riesling - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 12.5%, $45} Polished apple and talc, even a hint of pear. Lively palate, light-bodied, clean and vivid, with medium acidity. Juicy but dry. Nicely varietal, but I think suffering the loss of the fruit that now goes to the single vineyard bottlings, which makes this a bit expensive too. - 2025 Pooley Gewürztraminer - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13.3%, $42} From non-estate fruit. Classic varietal nose of roses & pot-pourri. Roses and sherbert flavours. Furry texture, no oak. Medium weight, with medium acidity. Dry, medium length finish. - 2024 Pooley Riesling Butcher's Hill - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13.5%, $70} Steely nose, clean, with some austere citrus and apple. Medium/high acidity, medium weight, with a dry, slightly fleshy-textured medium/long finish. Appears translucent beside its Cooinda vineyard sibling. - 2024 Pooley Riesling Cooinda Vale - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 12.9%, $70} A bit steely but way more earthy and dirty than the Butcher’s Hill bottling. The 4g/l of RS doesn’t show except as a slightly fleshy texture. There’s less citrus here, it’s more peach/apple in character. Medium weight, medium/long finish. I assume these single vineyard wines will age handsomely – there’s not enough provenance to know yet. - 2025 Pooley Chardonnay - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 12%, $58} Fairly lean (or dilute, if you’re cruel) modern chardy. 80% malo, sees 30% French oak. Faintly nutty character, some nougat. Mild palate, light/medium in weight, oak not obvious. Easy drinking style, short/medium finish. Dubious value for money. - 2024 Pooley Pinot Noir Coal River - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13.5%, $58} Labelled ‘Coal River Valley’, which I think is a recognised region name, so not the all-Tasmania blend they made have made previously as an entry level cuvee. This has a youthful nose of stalky cherry aromas, no evident oak. It’s light/medium in weight, with low gritty tannins and medium acidity. There’s a hint of browning leaves on the palate but it otherwise has a transparent sort of air about it, with a dry, short/medium length finish. It’s marginal value given the fairly low level of complexity on offer here, but should lift a bit over a few years. - 2024 Pooley Pinot Noir Butcher's Hill - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13.3%, $80} Ten months in oak, 35% new gives it a dark chocolate edge over the ripe cherry and five-spice aromas and flavours. Still a fruit-driven palate, light/medium in weight, with a warm, medium-length finish. It’s decent, but worth paying the extra $10 for the clearly superior Cooinda bottling in this vintage at least. - 2024 Pooley Pinot Noir Cooinda Vale - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13.5%, $90} Seductive and youthful nose of malty darkness, spice, tobacco, dark red fruit. 30% new oak for eleven months. Integrated palate, medium weight, medium dusty tannins. Even balance along the tongue, with a properly dry medium/long finish. Give it some years and watch it blossom. - 2024 Pooley Syrah - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 14%, $60} Youthful nose of spice and pepper. A bit glue-like on the nose too; eight months in oak but it’s not woody at all. Low/medium gritty tannins, cool peppery and savoury flavours, medium weight, short/medium finish. It’s young, yes, but I’m not sure it’s got the stuffing to age. For this style you can go to Hawke’s Bay for almost half this price. - 2025 Pooley Riesling Butcher's Hill Cane Cut Riesling - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{375ml, screwcap, 11%, $45} Kiwifruit and light honey, no botrytis. About medium/dry, with medium acidity. 143g/l of RS though it tastes less sweet than that might suggest. Light-bodied for dessert wine, with a short/medium finish. It’s pretty enough, but lacks depth and persistence.
Changes afoot here since my last visit, with the founder selling out entirely last year, along with a change of winemaker. There’s subsequently a schmick new tasting room, changed labels, and the abandoning of the two-grape-only mentality to account for what I assume is commercial reality with the introduction of a chardonnay. Shock! I wonder if there’s a backlog of wine to sell given the Riesling vintages on offer? I joined their club (which saved me the $30-for-six-wines tasting fee), so we’ll see how things go for the next couple of years. Again prices are for walk-up at CD; membership saves you 15-20%.
- 2018 Pressing Matters Blanc de Noirs - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{11.4%, $89} Six years on lees, disgorged 2024. Hint of strawberry and roses nodding to the pinot origin. Mild yeast character, fine, lively and persistent bubbles. Seems a little richer than pure brut on the palate. Medium/full weight, medium length finish. Will take cellar time easily. Some rarity factor seems built into the price. - 2023 Pressing Matters Riesling R0 - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13.1%, $43} Lean stone, talc, mineral, brine, apple and lime. Juicy palate, but as dry as the ‘R0’ name indicates. Light/medium in weight, even palate, with a subtle medium length finish. Just moving a little away from youthful. A full bottling consumed a week later confirmed these impressions. - 2024 Pressing Matters Riesling R9 - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 12.5%, $43} Somewhat muted nose; yellowing leaves, faint squash. Palate has soft mango/apple flavours. Still what I’d call ‘dry’, but a bit more generous and broad in flavour than the R0. Even palate, moderate acidity. Only short/medium length finish. Not quite enticing. - 2024 Pressing Matters Riesling Texture - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13%, $65} Iconoclastic stuff, this. Not an old neutral barrell, apparently. Slightly medicinal nose, glue and cough mixture with lemony undercurrent. Medium/full weight, 8g/l of RS which isn’t noticeable, medium length finish. Perhaps trying to drum up demand with look-at-me pricing? Not really convincing. - 2024 Pressing Matters Chardonnay - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 12.5%, $65} Nuts, butter, and oak. Some tropical peachy flavours as well, medium weight, held together nicely with medium level acidity. Generously-flavoured, dry, medium length finish. Tidy effort. Might develop well too; I’d expect that for the price, which is a bit marginal. - 2022 Pressing Matters Riesling R69 - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, $43} Something of a hard sell these days, according to CD, and as you might guess from the vintage. Off-dry, light honey character. Medium acidity to balance, but it seems more about sweetness and texture than real flavour, giving it a light-bodied, almost transparent aspect. Perhaps at an awkward age. - 2023 Pressing Matters Pinot Noir - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, 13%, $75} Dark cherry, herb, and tobacco. Dark-hued palate, some earth, subtle malty oak. Lowish dusty tannins, light/medium weight, medium acidity and medium length finish. Too young, obviously, but should develop. Decent at least. - 2024 Pressing Matters Pinot Noir - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{screwcap, $75} Similar in overall character to the 2023, but lighter in colour, a bit fruitier, although still with the earth/tobacco note. Slightly more pronounced finely grainy tannins. Approaching medium weight, but needs time also. - 2022 Pressing Matters Riesling R139 - Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{375ml, screwcap, 7.6%, $65} Pure honey and quince. Medium-sweet, but always with the translucence that comes with non-botrytised Riesling and a decent level of acidity. It’s still on the light side of medium weight, though and the finish is on the shorter side too. I suspect this is very vintage-dependent and this might be a weaker example of the breed. Price is very hopeful. Perhaps a few years cellaring will help, but not too many.
Tahbilk, Nagambie
First visit for ages. Right in the door at 10am – the perfect start to the Australia Day weekend. Large commercial CD, knowledgeable staff. Free membership gets you 10% off the prices below, so I didn’t really investigate the tasting fee situation after re-joining. Huge range – ten+ whites, plus back vintages, a dozen reds plus several back vintages. The 1860 vines shiraz & back vintages aren’t for tasting (officially), but everything else is. They really do it quite well. The range is temporarily complicated by a series of ‘Centennial’ bottlings from various grapes & vintages which were all released last year to mark a hundred years of ownership by the Purbrick family. Long may it continue.
- 2019 Tahbilk Marsanne Museum Release - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 12%, $36} Standard bottling held back (25 Marsanne is $22 for comparison), something they regularly do for worthy vintages. Developing lanolin, honeysuckle, quince even. A little bit of citrus on the palate. Dry, medium acid, no oak (or lees character), medium weight, medium length. Will still hold another 5-8 years easily, but fine to drink now. Good value, even better if you bought it on release and kept it. - 2017 Tahbilk Marsanne 1927 Vines - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 10.5%, $45} Barely developed. Spice and limestone. Hint of honey and pear on the palate, but it seems almost lighter-bodied than the regular 2019 bottling in comparison. But the palate is beautifully even, and there’s a gentle medium length finish that says it needs to be drunk at twenty years, not eight. Keep. - 2017 Tahbilk Riesling Centennial - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 10.5%, $36} I’ve found Tahbilk’s standard Riesling to be pretty prosaic over the years, despite really wanting to like it. But this has a fresh lemon-curd character, the palate is pure and juicy, with medium/high acidty, medium weight, and a medium/long dry finish. Really impressive, and at a perfect point of development. Will go longer too. Super wine. - 2022 Tahbilk Shiraz - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14.5%, $24} Mulberry , coconut and spice. Minimal oak. Medium acid, medium fine dusty tannins. Some pepperiness on the palate. Savoury style, medium weight, medium/long finish. Terrific value for the price, and with ten years in it easily. - 2018 Tahbilk Shiraz Eric Stevens Purbrick - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14.5%, $73} Notwithstanding the vintage difference, the character is similar to the standard bottling just tasted, but with much more overt richness of ripe plum and mulberry fruit, spice, sweet cedar and vanilla. Medium dusty tannins, medium weight, and a medium/long finish. It may not be worth three times the standard bottling, but is often available for a more reasonable double-price on the secondary market. - 2022 Tahbilk Cabernet Sauvignon - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14%, $24} Some curranty blackberry and coconut character. Medium/full weight, with medium powdery tannins, even balance that avoids any mid-palate hole so common at this price, medium acid, medium/long finish. Very tidy cabernet at a bargain price and with a decade’s cellaring in it. - 2021 Tahbilk Old Vines Cabernet - Shiraz - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14%, $45} A 60/40 blend from the old vineyards (presumably gets second go at the fruit after the ‘ESP’ varietal flagship wines). This offers chocolatey black fruits with some spicy vanilla oak. It’s fresh with acid, medium/full in weight, and with a medium/long finish. Great example to the two grapes working together. Impressive. - 2019 Tahbilk Marsanne Cane Cut - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{500ml, screwcap, 11%, $21} Nougat and honeysuckle with no botrytis evident. A tender palate, luscious but not heavy, thanks to the significant acidity balancing out medium/dry levels of sweetness. Stupidly cheap, especially considering the Tasmanian versions of this wine style I was trying a week earlier which were at least double the price for 375ml! - NV Tahbilk Muscat Liqueur - Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Nagambie Lakes (25/01/2026)
{screwcap, 17.5%, $33} Raisin and fruitcake. Fine example of the style; fully sweet, high acidity, medium/full weight, luscious and syrupy, but just a little one-dimensional in flavour to manage more than a medium length finish. Decent value all the same.
Now thriving under Casella family ownership, having languished under Pernod-Ricard’s disinterested stewardship, but with Morris family members still filling critical roles in the business. Shiny new cellar door – almost empty at 10am! A bunch of pre-selected flights available for tasting on oversized XL5-style glasses, although I scored a few extra freebies on account of obsessive note-taking. The danger of having back-vintage wines not ‘officially’ for tasting, but still pourable for interested parties is the likelihood of wines slowly oxidising despite the gas systems. This was the case here with both the older wines, although I only called the second, more egregious, example out. Still, a less alert punter might just assume the wine is no good. Value-for-money is pretty sharp here as well, and the table wines are really pretty good, despite being overshadowed by the fortifieds (with which I was already reasonably familiar). A frost last November (!) has made a mess of the 26 vintage. And other recent too-hot vintages haven’t been that great either. Everyone’s getting into whisky here too; I guess the margins are good, even though the payback time is long…
- 2024 Morris Chardonnay - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, 12.5%, $29} The only table white that Morris sell, and they source the fruit from the King valley, regarding Rutherglen as unsuitable. It offers stone fruits, nuts and soft sandalwood oak aromas, leavened with extra peach on the palate, all with medium acidity to keep it in shape. About medium weight, it’s dry, with only light oak on the palate, and perhaps a slightly dilute impression overall. Medium length finish. A year or two settling should help. - NV Morris Sparkling Shiraz/Durif - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{13.5%, $25} Soft blueberry chocolate flavours, with big bubbles and a liquorice afterglow. Dry, medium acid, not much tannin, medium length finish. Only fair, but a good price at least. - 2023 Morris Shiraz Bin 186 - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14.3%, $29} Spice, dark chocolate and cloves on the nose. Plum, blackberry, spice, pepper on the palate. Savoury in style, only light/medium weight, medium acid, low dusty tannins. Gentle medium length finish. These entry wines are supposed to be light easy-drinkers, not the porty inkpots of yore, and this does the job nicely. Best before it’s five I think. And a fair price too. - 2021 Morris Cabernet Sauvignon Basket Press - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14%, $29} Black olive and current, with subtle oak. Palate of dark chocolate, malt, olive, subtle oak, medium acid, low/medium powdery tannins. Medium weight, medium length finish. Avoids jam, finishes dry. Good value too. - 2024 Morris Durif Bin No 158 - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, 14%, $29} The easy-drinker from the region’s famous grape. Cherry, black pepper, warm spice, cinnamon. A chocolate edge to the palate, but it’s always savoury in style. Light/medium weight, with medium acid, it has only a nod of tannins and finishes a bit on the short side. It’s no more than fair; you may well wonder what the fuss is about. - 2021 Morris Durif CHM - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, 15%, $65} Spiced plums, vanilla. Big controlled black fruit palate, full-bodied, with medium/high dusty tannins. Not over-oaked though. Avoids dead-grape raisins as well. Dry, with medium acidity. Still young, wants a decade’s cellaring at least and should go for twenty years. 22 & 23 vintages not good, so stock up! - 2007 Morris Durif CHM - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, $95} This was poured because I was taking notes – it’s for sale but not (officially) tasting. To me it was a bit porty, despite the chocolate flavours. Medium gritty tannins, but the plum/black fruit was dried out and even brandied, the texture gritty and coarse. I suspect oxidation from being open too long, and that this is not typical. Although I didn’t ask for a second bottle, when I noticed the same aura on the back vintage CHM shiraz (see next note) a fresh bottle of that confirmed my suspicions. Makes this one a bit hard to call… - 2019 Morris Shiraz CHM - Australia, Victoria, North East, Rutherglen (26/01/2026)
{screwcap, $95} From the second bottle, the first having been determined to have been open under the counter (despite the cap) a bit too long. Spiced blackberry fruit, warm and still fresh. Medium/full weight, plenty of acid and medium/high dusty tannins cradle the fruit nicely. Medium length finish, perhaps a bit more. Coming into a drinking window of sorts, not need to hurry – this has a decade at least of improvement to come.
