2023 Thistledown Thorny Devil Old Vine Grenache McLaren Vale 750 ml

The greatest wines in the world are the product of obsession, pure and simple—and nobody in Australia is more obsessed with ancient-vine Grenache than Masters of Wine Giles Cooke and Fergal Tynan.

Founders of Thistledown, these guys have made a name for themselves with wines like today’s Thorny Devil, which has earned unequivocal praise: Halliday Wine Companion has said you’d “be hard-pressed to find a better wine than this for the price.” Wine Advocate said “You can rely on Thistledown for great Grenache. It's their thing."

Their Thorny Devil 2023 is a phenomenal wine…as we’ve come to expect. It earned 94 points from Aussie authority Halliday Wine Companion, plus 93 from James Suckling. Wine Advocate, for their part, called it “a rip-snorting little wine…it’s really good.” 

Thistledown, founded in 2010, has quickly become a leader in Australian Grenache, granted five “red” stars from Halliday Wine Companion, their highest honor, reserved for “a winery with a long track record of excellence—truly the best of the best.” 

Halliday describes "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." You simply can’t be in better hands. 

Thistledown is a product of the shared passion of Fergal Tynan MW and Giles Cooke MW, two British veterans of the fine wine trade who—much like Morgan Peterson MW has at Bedrock in California—sought out some of the oldest, lowest-yielding vines in McLaren Vale and Barossa. Anybody who has enjoyed the legendary Clarendon Hills Grenaches of the 1990s and early 2000s knows exactly the heights these ancient bush-trained vines, planted in sand, can achieve. 

Tynan and Cooke have taken this region’s potential even higher, by picking on the early side—but in 2023, the cool weather dictated a late harvest. After the grapes were in, they conducted a gentle, cool, native-yeast fermentation before raising the wine in neutral oak.