Thistledown

Thistledown is a collaboration between Giles Cooke, Fergal Tynan and renowned winemaker Peter Leske. Giles and Fergal are UK-based MWs with a collective 40+ years experience in buying and selling Australian wines. Both men share a true passion and love of Australian wine and also share the frustration that, in many markets, Australian wine was stereotyped as big, alcoholic, and unsuited to premium restaurants. Both knew that this didn’t have to be the case and set upon a journey to create wines of elegance, detail and balance. From their small-batch winery in the idyllic Adelaide Hills, they work with pristine fruit sourced from iconic vineyard sites in the Barossa Valley, Mclaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills. Using the fruit from these great sites and employing intelligent, low-intervention winemaking techniques, resulting in wines with incredible soul, vibrance, energy and subtely. Giles and Fergal share a particular passion for Grenache and in ever more detail, Thistledown continue to unpick the rich patchwork of South Australian Grenache – reassembling it in their own inimitable style. This unique blend of superb fruit sources and experience in both the New and the Old Worlds, helps them craft wine of subtlety, texture and detail – wines perfectly suited to complement rather than overwhelm fine food.