2024 Thistledown ‘Sands of Time' Grenache

Ranked #1 of 28 
2024 Grenache from McLaren Vale
98 Points, Gabrielle Poy, The Real Review
A fragrant and charismatic nose of raspberry jelly crystals, heady spices, rosehip and English Breakfast tea leaves you in a fix. Its buoyant and bright core is supported by a scaffolding of fine silty tannins that coat the tongue and ever so slightly pucker the cheeks. It's beautifully tactile and transparent. This is among the most exciting Aussie wines I've had in a long time - and it's only one year old. It's full-bodied with incredible grace and poise. Wow! I'd love to have this for the cellar

TOP 100 WINES OF THE YEAR -
97 Points Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion
From Sue Trott’s Blewitt Springs vineyard, planted in '52 to deep Maslin Sands. The Trott vineyard typically throws a slightly darker fruit profile, and this wine can be a little slower to emerge after bottling, but this year it’s open, perfumed and engaging from the beginning. That’s not to say it’s simpler – far from it. Refined, elegant, suffused with pressed florals and dark spice notes, rosehip tea, dried black cherry, iron, fennel seed and warm stone, the shape and drive reminiscent of nebbiolo, though more Valtellina than Langhe. That comparison is just for communication, as this is strikingly its own thing, another arrow finding the bullseye to show why modern Australian grenache is one of world wine’s most exciting categories. Sublime.is.