Thistledown’s This Charming Man Old Vine Grenache 2024 is one of the wines of the year

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Mattinson review of Thistledown This Charming Man Old Vine Grenache 2024.

Thistledown This Charming Man Old Vine Grenache 2024
$95, 13.5% alcohol, screwcap, McLaren Vale.

Thistledown’s This Charming Man Grenache 2024 is one of the best Australian red wines of 2025.

Grown on the Smart vineyard at Clarendon in McLaren Vale. The finesse of this wine, the inherent balance, the array, the interest. And the length. This is a superb wine. Light but insistent, powerful where it needs to be, awash with spice and cherried fruit, and so gorgeously long, sinewy and fine through the finish, the mark of excellence. This is a grenache for the true believers. You don’t just drink this, you come home to it. 96 points.

I have no problem in marking this as one of the best Australian red wines of 2025.

If the above wine sounds good, you really need to know about this wine too.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of the highly respected The Winefront site.

Mattinson has been an independent wine critic and photo-journalist since 1987. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the prized Best Australian Sports Writing Award.

Mattinson, who is 100% independent, puts a score out of 100 on every wine that he reviews. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
Previous

Barons of Barossa Grenache 2024
Next

Terah Wine Co Rosé 2024