Thistledown This Charming Man Grenache 2024
This wine displays muscular yet elegant silky black fruits couple with deep, rich, warming spices, hints of violet, mineral and black cherry.
“From the Smart vineyard – a Grand Cru of the Vale – with the great Bernard Smart (vale) immortalised on the front label. Fermented as whole bunches in a concrete pyramid, then matured in hogsheads, with 20% new oak. Such a delightfully pale-hued, fragrantly savoury and finely structured suite this year. A red aperitivo thread builds through the sour cherry, tart redcurrant, pomegranate and dried cranberry notes, with bitter orange, coriander seed, cardamom, white pepper, cinchona bark, cinnamon and bitter alpine herbs. There’s such engaging transparency to this, such serene refinement, such poise. It’s a wine of incredible depth and weightlessness, suspended over a tannic net of such intricacy. It’s as good an iteration as I can recall tasting on release. A great wine.”
99 pts Halliday Wine Companion (Panel) – 2026 Grenache of the Year, Red Wine of the Year and Wine of the Year
“The 2024 The Charming Man Single Vineyard Grenache hails from Clarendon, on Brooks Road. The “Charming Man” is, of course, Bernard Smart, who sadly passed away in October 2023; his son, Wayne, continues the legacy there. The wine opens with blood orange, fresh lavender, crushed rose petals and frisky acidity. This is ferrous and bloody, layered with dried citrus and north African spices, which are no doubt driven from the iron-rich clays with siltstone and quartz of Clarendon. It is penetrating and intense, spicy and quite firm in its tannin profile, yet it is pliable, agile and exciting.
Despite the fine acid, there is no acid adjustment here. The oldest part of the vineyard is 102 years old, while the youngest part is 53 years old. The “young” vines have a higher fruiting zone, approximately six inches higher up than the oldest parts of the vineyard, meaning that it can be picked up to 10 days earlier. This “young” pocket has lower pH and higher total acidity, earlier flavor development and, hence, no added acidity. It’s a superb wine, one that will evolve in the glass over the evening. Here’s hoping it lasts that long. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.”
97 points – The Wine Advocate
“A focused, lively, chiseled and attractive grenache with aromas of dried strawberries, dried raspberries, dried herbs and warm spices. Medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins. Seductive with a velvety stream of succulent berries. Plenty of vitality toward the precise and linear finish. Drink or hold. Screw cap.”
94 points – James Suckling
This remarkable site has vines that are 100+ years old. The entire site, high in the picturesque Clarendon sub-region of McLaren Vale, is planted entirely with dry grown bush vines and has been farmed by the same family for three generations. This wine is sourced from one particular block where the canopy is raised slightly higher above the ground, allowing for better air circulation and increased radiated sunlight. Hand-picked fruit, harvested on March 25th, was transported to the winery where 20% was retained as whole bunches to be placed on the base of a concrete pyramid fermenter. The fruit underwent a wild ferment with no active must movement, creating a gentle infusion rather than extraction. After that, the wine was pressed off into seasoned French puncheons where it matured for 11 months before being racked to bottle.
A Sense of Place is something that many winemakers talk about but it’s a tricky concept to get across to anyone who has not visited the region or who knows the people involved. In many ways, the “new world” Sense of Place echoes the old world notion of Terroir where the effects of soil, site, aspect, climate and tradition all come to bear on the eventual character and quality of the wine – lending it a unique personality. On a beautiful hillside in the Clarendon sub-region of McLaren Vale, three generations of the Smart family have devoted their lives to Grenache. Decades have passed where precious few valued their crop and yet they endured. That this remarkable vineyard has survived, is all due to Bernard Smart, and this wine pays homage to this charming man.
