Tabilk

Tabilk is a rural locality between Seymour and Nagambie in central Victoria, best known for the Chateau Tabilk vineyard.

During the mid-1860s small farms began to be occupied in the Tabilk district, for which much grey box forest had to be cleared. The land was suitable for growing wheat and grapes. Upwards of 30 vineyards were developed in the Tabilk district before the phylloxera infestation. The sole survivor was Chateau Tabilk, a vineyard on the Goulburn River. Begun in 1860, the vineyard is noted for its five storey timber tower and cellars which are on the Australian and Victorian historic buildings registers. Chateau Tabilk vineyard was badly run down by the 1930s, when the Purbrick family brought it back to improved standards.

The vineyard is set in an area with numerous river meanders and billabongs. It is near Mitchellstown, the town specified by the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, Thomas Mitchell, as being a place for a township. His plan was supplanted by Seymour, which had a better crossing place for getting over the Goulburn River. The Mitchelton Winery (1971) is nearby.

Apart from vineyards, Tabilk had orchards and grazing. A school was opened in 1868. In 1903 the Australian handbook described Tabilk:

Apart from the Tabilk Winery, the Tabilk locality has no building which has public use. It is a farming district with a scatter of dwellings.

Tabilk’s census populations have been: