Thistledown wines narrate the stories and harness the energy of South Australia's iconic vineyard sites to hand-craft detailed, pure & precise Grenache, Shiraz & Chardonnay. Since 2011 Thistledown has hand-made delicious, energetic wines – all sourced from iconic vineyard sites in the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, and the Adelaide Hills. We are founded by two Masters of Wine, Giles Cooke MW, and Fergal Tynan MW, whose vision is to make small-batch wines reflecting their personality and that of the ‘place’ and growers. At our winery in the Adelaide Hills, our focus is on crafting premium, small-batch, low-intervention wines from sites that we believe are special. It's no secret that we're obsessed with Grenache, particularly the old vine, dry-grown stuff in McLaren Vale and Barossa. We’ve been gathering the very best selection of Grenache sites in Australia and have become an authority on Australian Grenache and its ‘Grand Cru’ capability.

Sourced from a single, old vineyard in Berri that is approximately 70 years old. Trained more like trees than bushes, these venerable old vines produce beautifully balanced fruit with subtle flavours. The fruit was hand-picked before gentle de-stemming and crushing followed by 3.5 hours on skins to extract minimal colour. A cool fermentation followed which retained the aromatic, herbal notes and focused the crisp, textural palate. Maturation on lees for 2 months helped increased texture prior to bottling