Thistledown The Vagabond Grenache 2019
This wine possesses a beautifully complex, aromatic nose of violets, wild cherry, rosemary and warming spice. The palate is energetic yet polished and smooth with vibrant cherry, spice, wild strawberry and licorice on the palate. Medium bodied but multilayered and textural with a very long, aromatic finish.
93pts Wine Spectator Weekly Online February 2021 – Aromatic and detailed, this red offers juicy maraschino cherry, blood orange, pomegranate, clove, green tea, cedar, lavender and fresh loamy notes that are precise and elegant, followed by a long, expressive finish. Drink now through 2031. —M.W.
From old, dry grown, bush trained vineyards in the revered Blewitt Springs district of McLaren Vale, planted in deep sands with some ironstone. The fruit was all hand-picked and 68% was then wild fermented in a concrete pyramid which had layers of whole bunches and alternating layers of crushed fruit. This ferment had no mechanical extraction. The balance was wild fermented in an open fermenter with 35% whole bunches, and was hand plunged twice daily. This portion was aged in puncheons while the pyramid fermented was pressed back to a concrete egg and oak puncheons for maturation. The resulting layers of complexity and depth of flavor are exactly what was aimed for. Racked from there into blending tank and then straight to bottle, unfined and unfiltered.
