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Thistledown Wines is a boutique winery primarily located in McLaren Vale. The founder, Master of Wine Giles Cooke, goes to great lengths to acquire fruit parcels from the region's most impressive sites. The team's focus is on producing Grenache wines that are elegant and have the ability to age gracefully. Their passion for Grenache is evident in the resulting wines, which highlight the variety's charm and distinctiveness. Today, we have an impressive collection of their single-site wines that not only impressed us during our tasting earlier this week but also left a lasting impression on the critics, as you will see below.
All wines below are available now at our special offer prices for the next seven days only. To place your order, simply click on the links below or contact us by email, or by phone on 03 9419 6990.
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2022 Thorny Devil Old Vine Single Vineyard Grenache
Usually $35 - Special Offer $32
"While vintage '22 may not scale the heights of '21, it was another attenuated, Euro-styled year of poise, enough fruit weight and immense freshness. Savoury, the signature. I'll take that over obvious sweetness any day. The first cab off the premier rank. A subregional blend limited to old, dry-grown bush vines. Varying degrees of whole bunches. A number of picking windows, too, to embellish freshness and enough weight. Fermentation is ambient. I'd be hard-pressed to find a better wine than this for the price. Kirsch, ume, cranberry, bergamot and a scape of pixelated tannin, sandy of feel, directing length."
94 Points
Ned Goodwin MW, The Halliday Wine Companion
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2022 The Vagabond Old Vine Single Vineyard Grenache
Usually $59 - Special Offer $54
"Blewitt Springs, an Australian grand cru equivalent. Old bush vines, as is the wont. Wild fermented with a good portion of whole bunches, some in concrete pyramids sans agitation, before ageing in concrete and large neutral oak. Brilliant! Like a slinky, before release over the top step, as riffs on persimmon, Seville orange, rosehip, pomegranate and impeccably ripe cherry clafoutis unwind and expand with a rattle. Long. A sandy scape of gorgeous tannins. World class."
96 Points
Ned Goodwin MW, The Halliday Wine Companion
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2023 She's Electric Old Vine Single Vineyard Grenache
Usually $59 - Special Offer $54
"From dry-grown old bush vines planted to red-brown sandy loams with quartz and ironstone in Seaview. Wild fermented with 50% whole bunches; eight months in French oak. This is such an aromatically distinctive wine, with all the Thistledown grenache bottlings so keenly differentiated – I would not tire if there were more! Open and perfumed at this early stage, with wild cherry, a garigue-like scrubby note, tart redcurrant, rhubarb and warm brown spices and a depth that belies the immediate fragrance, transparency and pale hue. The balance here is the quiet star, with ripples of texture radiating over the sandy coil of tannin, effortless but with latent power. Stunning."
96 Points
Marcus Ellis, The Halliday Wine Companion
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2022 Fool on the Hill Mattschoss Vineyard Grenache
Usually $95 - Special Offer $86
"The fruit for this 2022 Fool on the Hill Grenache hails from the Mattschoss vineyard in Eden Valley, and the wine veritably explodes with crushed rocks, black earth, clove and dried star anise, raspberry leaf tea and dehydrated orange peel. This comes alive in the mouth, where it is savory but spicy, totally New World and a little bit febrile, all the while pushing this forge of raspberry-inflected flavor across the tongue and through to the finish. This is a ripping wine, left of center, super, precise, a bit gritty, awesome. it is really contained in its shape."
96 Points
Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
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2023 Sands of Time Old Vine Single Vineyard Grenache
Usually $95 - Special Offer $86
"The 2023 Sands of Time Old Vine Single Vineyard Grenache leads with a floral, fragrant bouquet of Boscobel rose, crushed green (and salted) pistachios, licorice, clove, star anise and cracked fennel seeds. The wine is structurally fine and ductile; the tannins present us with an attractive framework of support and texture. It is gently chewy, layered with tobacco, iron and a hint of boudin noir, or black pudding. (I was recently pulled away from my Northern English roots while in France. We had boudin noir, and it was significantly silkier, fattier, softer and more lustrous than the English version; and to my palate at least, it was far more aligned with wine and nuance.) Suffice to say, this is a super wine, fragrant and detailed, long and complex. Yes!"
97 Points
Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
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2023 This Charming Man Single Vineyard Grenache
Usually $95 - Special Offer $86
"The 2023 The Charming Man Single Vineyard Grenache is altogether moodier and darker than the Sands of Time tasted alongside it, but that is not making a comment on "weight" or "density" but rather on character. Here, we have blackberry and mulberry, raspberry pip and star anise, layers of coal dust, dirt and graphite, clove and even nutmeg/cinnamon. The tannins are über fine, chalky, grippy and gently chewy. It is a wonderful thing to experience the "feel" of the wine as much as the taste. Interacting with red wine in this way—and white as well—makes for thrilling drinking. It curls and winds its way through the long finish. It's super. A pleasure."
96 Points
Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
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All wines above are available now at our special offer prices for the next seven days only. To place your order, simply click on the links above or contact us by email, or by phone on 03 9419 6990.
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