Thistledown, Bachelor's Block Single Site Shiraz, Ebenezer, Barossa Valley, South Australia 2022

Thistledown was founded by Master of Wine, Giles Cooke who had a vision for a more elegant, textural interpretation of Australian wine.

Initial explorations resulted in access to many of the best vineyards, many of which were the previously unloved Old Vine Grenache. Incredible, historic fruit sources coupled with Giles’ increasingly adept efforts has quickly resulted in a reputation for being amongst the best in the country. Narrating the stories of these wines to an increasingly attentive global audience is Giles’ heartfelt commitment and mission.

These 25 year old trellised vines are planted on deep, iron rich clay loams, studded with quartz and ironstone. We're familiar with this fruit and so the aim was to maximise the potential of the site. As ever, they hand-picked relatively early in order to preserve the fresher aromatics.

The fruit was left to cold soak for a couple of days before the natural fermentation began. They used approx 35% whole bunches in the ferment, which was hand plunged twice daily. Post ferment maceration lasted a further 5 days before pressing to 300 litre French hogsheads - where it lay for 14 months before bottling.

Sturdy black berries sourced from this single vineyard in the Ebenezer subregion have power, purpose and extraordinary clean, long flavours. This is serious, folks, as the fine-grained black tea tannins crowd around sharply defined berry flavours and taper the finish to a perfect soft landing

Grape: 100% Shiraz