2022 Thistledown "Thorny Devil" Grenache, McLaren Vale, Australia

Thistledown's approach to winemaking is simple. 

We work with remarkable sites, so our job is to coax that fruit in to bottle, retaining as much of that energy and personality as possible. Low yielding sites, hand-picked a little earlier. 

In the winery, the small batches are allowed to ferment spontaneously, we use minimal extraction, love concrete fermenters and enjoy the detail that oak can bring, but not the dominating flavour.We started with a vision to produce wines that are definitively "of their place" and though that sounds a bit pretentious its just about making wines that we feel reflect the personality of the place, the growers and of course us.We love wines with life, vibrancy of fruit, texture, tension and drinking appeal. In order to achieve this, we only buy very high quality grapes from growers who share our vision and are prepared to work with us to deliver pristine fruit to the winery.It's become the norm in some regions to give the grapes extended hang time and to look for fruit sweetness and ripe flavours in the vineyard. We prefer to work with fruit that still has great balance of sweetness, acidity and tannin - fruit that we pick "on the way up rather than on the way down". 

95 pts

The Real Review

Deep purple-red colour; the bouquet has raspberry and blackcurrant pastille aromas, complexed by gentle spice notes. The wine is medium-full bodied and laced with a delicious core of sweet fruit shrouded in emery-like tannins that impart pleasing structure. Good length: a very stylish modern grenache that can be enjoyed young." - Huon Hooke

94 pts

Halliday Wine Companion

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. - Ned Goodwin MW

94 pts

James Suckling

The 2022 vintage was a Euro-styled year of poise with plenty of fruit weight and immense freshness, although it has not reached the same lofty heights as the 2021 vintage. Savory. I'll take that over obvious sweetness any day. The first cab from the premier rank. A sub-regional 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. Ambient fermentation. One would 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. Drink or hold. Screw cap

93 pts

Wine Advocate

This is a super little wine. The 2022 Thorny Devil Grenache is spicy, supple and shaped, as all the Thistledown Grenaches are, by ductile, flowing tannins in the mouth. This has shape and form, but it is also a plump, cushioned little number that gives all manner of pleasure. It's a generous, smiling little thing, delicious. There are notes of blood, raspberry, red licorice and ferrous. It is sapid as all get up. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.