Thistledown, The Vagabond, Blewett Springs Grenache 2022

The Vagabond, was the first red wine made by our friends at Thistledown, way back in the 2011 vintage. Since then, it has taken a few turns in composition and vineyard sourcing, but is now a wine in high demand, winning accolades, awards, trophies and many fans on an annual basis. It’s a stunning wine that shows the skill of grower and wine-makers alike.

If you want a delicious mouthful of Australian sunshine with complex, rewarding flavours, then this is your wine.

Old dry-grown and gnarled Grenache vines were not very poplar in 2011 as they brought neither quantity nor jet-black colour in the resultant wines. However, they do bring sensational, textured and complex wines that show the terroir and delicacy that wonderful Grenache can yield. This has been the goal of our chums in thistledown and this wine, the roving, unsettled wayfarer, and the grapes now come from just four vineyards in McLaren Vale's Blewett Springs. 

All the fruit gets hand-picked as you'd expect and each of the four vineyards is vinified separately. One of these gets left as a wild ferment in a concrete pyramid (like an egg, but not an egg shape...) with whole bunches and crushed berries put in together in order to maximise texture and complex layers of flavour. The fruit from the other vineyards is then fermented in large open-top fermenting vessels with 35% whole bunches, hand plunged twice daily. These three portion are aged in huge, inert oak puncheons while the pyramid fermented wine gets pressed back to a concrete egg (like a pyramid...) and oak puncheons for maturation. 

That's a bit complex but the key point is this: it's very much a gently extracted wine with one portion receiving the concrete treatment, which, in my opinion, is going to become the absolute go-to technique for wines in the coming age.

Just a note on concrete.

Concrete use in fermentation gives a remarkably profound, unobtrusive richness to wines; there is something about a slow, constant and gentle turning of the grape skins (that's what happens in the concrete vessels) that imbues the wines with better mouthfeel, without heavy extraction. Honestly, I have met winemaker friends who have recently changed to concrete use and though I have loved some of their wines for many years, the changes have been startlingly good! It doesn't mean "no oak" or a move to austere and ungenerous wine styles: in fact it's almost the opposite. Concrete, especially in egg or conical or trapezoid shapes, is a very good thing.

This wine shows a beautifully complex, aromatic nose of red cherries, violets, garrigue herbs and warm, culinary spices. The palate is nervy and tense, yet polished and smooth with a vibrant flavour set of cherries, spice, strawberry and liquorice. The medium body has huge complexity and a gorgeously engaging texture with a very long, flavour-filled finish. 

James Halliday, 96 Points

"Blewitt Springs, an Australian grand cru equivalent. Old bush vines, as is the wont. Wild fermented with a good portion of whole bunches, some in concrete pyramids sans agitation, before ageing in concrete and large neutral oak. Brilliant! Like a slinky, before release over the top step, as riffs on persimmon, Seville orange, rosehip, pomegranate and impeccably ripe cherry clafoutis unwind and expand with a rattle. Long. A sandy scape of gorgeous tannins. World class."

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 92 Points

"You can rely on Thistledown for great Grenache. It's their thing. Here, the 2022 The Vagabond Old Vine Grenache leads with a vibrant display of red berries, exotic spices and black olive tapenade in merengue lockstep. There are also notes of poached strawberries, redcurrants, red apple skins and salted licorice. This is a lovely wine. It feels lighter than I remember the 2021 being. It is delicate. I love the bloody tannins, open-weave and chewy. The tannins are the highlight. 14.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap."

James Suckling, 96 Points

"Deep, bright purple-red colour; a gently scented bouquet of raspberry and blackcurrant pastilles, fringed with subtle spices. The wine is full bodied and there are ample fine-grained tannins that impart pleasing structure and contribute to its length. A very smart grenache that will age well but can also be enjoyed young. Best served with North African and Middle Eastern cuisine or robust fish dishes. The crew at Thistledown are Grenache-obsessed - they know how fantastic the McLaren Vale region is at producing stellar Grenache, and they sure love to show it off. An excellent example of a well made, boutique wine."