The Hunt is on for old Tulloch Wines
If you’ve been rummaging through a cellar lately and come across an old bottle of Tulloch wine, now is the time to let us know about it as we hunt down our old wines to mark our 120th birthday.
As part of Tulloch’s 120th year celebrations we are reviving a promotion last run in 1982 to help us locate some of the first vintages of wines produced by the family, with the hope of them being utilised in a flagship event to be held in May.
“We currently have a good collection of Tulloch Private Bin Pokolbin Dry Red Shiraz wines which my Dad has been cellaring in anticipation of a special event. The oldest bottle he has is from the first vintage of this label from 1952 and the tasting will be a retrospective of this famous wine spanning the last 62 years. However, we are hopeful of unearthing some other Tulloch gems with this promotion that predate the 1952 Private Bin,” says Christina Tulloch, CEO and fourth generation of the Tulloch family.
At Tulloch we often have people contacting us to see if we can put a value on old bottles of our wine they have found in cellars of deceased estates or when cleaning out their parents wine collections. To help us fill in some of the gaps we have in our retrospective tasting, it would be great to see what people can unearth for us.
An article printed in the Weekly Times in March of 1982, quotes current Managing Director Jay Tulloch, “Jay Tulloch, said he had been able to locate every dry red the winery had produced since 1952, as well as red from the 1931 and 1947 vintages….. What makes our task so difficult is that my grandfather didn’t sell his wine under the Tulloch label. Most of it was sold in bulk and bottled under other merchants labels. However we believe some early Tulloch Wines were purchased direct from the winery. We hope that some of these early bottlings might have been tagged with vineyard-of-origin labels….”
Depending on the nature and condition of the find we are willing to offer payment for the bottles or a swap for current vintage wines. Of course donations of old (full or empty) bottles are also welcome, but bottles that have not been opened are what we are really looking for. The oldest unopened bottle that we find, will also win two tickets to one of the events we will be holding to celebrate our 120th anniversary.
“We are interested in all old Tulloch Wines, not just Private Bin Pokolbin Dry Red Shiraz. We do see some unusual and special release labels appearing every now and again and it would be great to see as many of these as possible. Wines from the 70’s and earlier are of particular interest,” says Christina.
The promotion is open from now to the end of April 2015. Anyone who has a bottle of interest is asked to contact us via email and if possible include a picture of the bottle, clearly showing the label and vintage and the contents of the bottle to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Vintages of Private Bin Pokolbin Dry Red Shiraz we already have (but welcome more of): 1952, 1954, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967 & 1968.
Did You Know? The Pokolbin Dry Red label was awarded the 2012 Heritage Award at the 6th annual Hunter Valley Legends & Wine Industry Awards, which honours the 176 year history of the Hunter Valley as Australia’s oldest commercial wine region through the recognition and preservation of the areas icons and forebears. Hector Tulloch first used the Pokolbin Dry Red label for Shiraz in 1952 along with its brother wine, Pokolbin Dry Red Private Bin, which became one of the premium red wines of Australia in the 1950’s and 60’s, enjoying a reputation that was second to none.
For further information, images or interviews, please contact:
Christina Tulloch on 0407 482 701 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.