Thistledown Wines

Thistledown is a conflation of wisdom, foresight and strident confidence; an assemblage of talent, superb old-vine sites and remarkable wines that have established a firmament at the top of the grenache totem in this country. Giles Cooke and Fergal Tynan – each a master of wine, historian and lover of the world’s finest grenache – became tired of international stereotypes of Australian wine. With vast experience respectively making and selling wines from Spain, they began to carve out a niche defined by filigreed precision, thirst-slaking tannins and crunchy red fruit elements. These are small-batch micro-ferments handled in the right vessels and extracted with aplomb. They unravel as exquisite expressions to be sure. -NED GOODWIN MW