Thistledown Fool on the Hill Grenache 2024

The 2024 Fool on the Hill Grenache is from Eden Valley, and the wine is abundantly aromatic and eloquent of its place. The tiered vineyard site is up near Pewsey Vale and overlooks the Barossa from its vantage point of 500 meters above sea level. The wine is aromatically soft, textural and plump in the mouth, with rose petals and blood orange, red apples and redcurrants. With a hint of pomegranate molasses, the quartz comes through, and there's an integrated base of savory flavor that balances the exuberance of it. It's a highly attractive, gorgeous wine that speaks of the Eden in its splay of rocky tannin. It is chewy and powdery and fills the mouth with floral perfume. It fermented in concrete, which was a "layer cake of whole bunch and whole berry," says founder and winemaker Giles Cooke MW. The ferment received no pumping over, i.e., a very gentle extraction. Post ferment, it matured for 10 months in three- to five-year-old French puncheons. When I think of the three Grenache wines, I, perhaps controversially, given the others are from McLaren Vale, admire the tannin structure of this one the most. They all are magnificent wines.

• Drinking Window: 2025 - 2044
• Reviewer Name: Erin Larkin