Thistledown The Vagabond Grenache 2024

96 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion

From four dry-grown bush vine sites in Blewitt Springs, planted to deep sands with some ironstone. A portion was fermented in a concrete pyramid with alternating whole bunch and crushed layers, the balance in open fermenters with 25% whole bunches. Kirsch and fresh cherry juice, pomegranate, intensely rose scented and fragrant, pashmak, Turkish delight, raspberry leaf tea, white pepper, parsley seed and a stony mineral note. The ease here can be deceptive, so pretty it is, but there’s a quiet seriousness, a vital thread of ultra-fine pumice-like tannins and a preservation of ethereal aromatics without confection.

95 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

Sourced from five sites in Blewitt Springs. Bright, raspberry, rose petal, spices like fennel seed and cardamom, and quite exotic in that way. Medium-bodied, strawberry and raspberry, very bright and pretty, a luminous style, with delicate tannin, and a long finish. Giles Cooke says ‘you can really get about it’, which neatly distills the essence of this wine in fewer words than I’m capable of. Paperbark tannin and a stone fruit juiciness rounds it out. Delightful. 94 or 95, and I think the latter is the go.

94 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

This Vagabond is routinely a Grenache that is a great value for money. It eloquently expresses Blewitt Springs, from whence it is sourced, but it also delivers an inarguably delicious drinking experience. Both aspects are vital to its success. The 2024 The Vagabond Old Vine Grenache is light in the glass, perfumed and floral, with an abundance of garden roses, crushed rocks and dried herbs, and it is shaped by silty, graphite tannins. It's a succulent, vibrant, structural Grenache, with freshness to spare. This is super. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.