2026 Wine of the Year
Thistledown Wines This Charming Man Single Vineyard Clarendon Grenache 2024, McLaren Vale, South Australia
98 points | Price when tasted $95
Thistledown Wines This Charming Man Single Vineyard Clarendon Grenache 2024 has been named the 2026 Companion's Wine of the Year.
"This was our first year of looking at varietal grenache as a class, without blends, and nothing to muddy the waters, so to speak; just purity under a microscope. And this wine wowed. The room was left with no uncertainty, nor reason for second guessing; this wine was simply the finest example of varietal grenache on the bench and, further, the finest wine full stop.
This is a wine of provenance, quality and sheer depth of flavour. A wine that drinks well now and has the foundations to go the distance in the cellar. This is also a wine that speaks of an important site; the vineyard is comprised of dry-grown bush vines and planted to red clay loam soils by the Smart family, who have dedicated three generations to maintaining and improving the hillside vineyard in Clarendon, a subregion within McLaren Vale.
The wine’s namesake Bernard Smart (who passed at 90 years of age in 2023) was the Charming Man. Bernard’s son, Wayne Smart, is as inflexible about maintaining the rigorous vineyard practices as the generations before him. In the winery, winemaker and founder of Thistledown Wines Giles Cooke MW (yes, Giles is also a Master of Wine) retained 20 per cent of the pick to be fermented as whole bunches in a concrete pyramid, then matured in hogsheads, with 20 per cent new oak.
This is another exceptional wine from this estate (the 2023 vintage of this wine won the Grenache & Blends category for the 2025 Companion); a faithful jewel of the Vale." – Katrina Butler
