2026 Halliday Top Rated

The best grenache in Australia

By The Tasting Team

The Thistledown Wines This Charming Man Single Vineyard Clarendon Grenache 2024 has been named the best grenache in Australia.

The Halliday Wine Companion Awards celebrate the top wines in Australia – as chosen by our esteemed wine critics who spend the year tasting and reviewing wine from across the country. Below, you'll find Australia's best grenache wines, along with the ratings awarded by the Tasting Team.

For the first year, this is now a single varietal category. It’s time we looked at grenache in its purest state. Single-site expressions of grenache have risen year on year and the advancements producers have made in understanding the potential of the grape and diversity of sites have led us here. Putting it simply, Australian grenache has never looked so good.

But before you dive into the exhaustive list of Australia's best grenache, you can check out the current winner of our Grenache of the Year award – the 2024 This Charming Man Single Vineyard Clarendon Grenache Thistledown Wines.

2026 Grenache of the Year

Thistledown Wines This Charming Man Single Vineyard Clarendon Grenache 2024, McLaren Vale

98 points | Price when tasted $95


Thistledown Wines This Charming Man Single Vineyard Clarendon Grenache 2023, McLaren Vale

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From the Smart vineyard – a Grand Cru of the Vale – with the great Bernard Smart (vale) immortalised on the front label. Fermented as whole bunches in a concrete pyramid, then matured in hogsheads, with 20% new oak. Such a delightfully pale-hued, fragrantly savoury and finely structured suite this year. A red aperitivo thread builds through the sour cherry, tart redcurrant, pomegranate and dried cranberry notes, with bitter orange, coriander seed, cardamom, white pepper, cinchona bark, cinnamon and bitter alpine herbs. There’s such engaging transparency to this, such serene refinement, such poise. It’s a wine of incredible depth and weightlessness, suspended over a tannic net of such intricacy. It’s as good an iteration as I can recall tasting as a young wine. – Marcus Ellis

Learn more about grenache.

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The 2026 Halliday Wine Companion is available now. Secure your copy of Australia's most comprehensive wine guide at all good bookstores.

This is an edited extract from the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion, with reviews by Dave Brookes, Jane Faulkner, Jeni Port, Katrina Butler, Marcus Ellis, Mike Bennie, Philip Rich, Shanteh Wale and Toni Paterson MW. Cover art by James Coe.


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