Our Story
Every Wine Tells a Tale
Founded by Master of Wine Giles Cooke in 2010, we have become established as one of Australia's most exciting producers and the most lauded maker of old vine Grenache.
Long before it became fashionable, we recognised the urgent need to save the old vines of South Australia. We work with the custodians of these historic sites to ensure they have a future.
Bringing forward picking dates, using whole bunches and wild ferments in concrete — these choices help us faithfully translate what each site has to say, from vineyard to bottle.
Grenache Fanatics
We are proudly Grenache obsessed. Thistledown belongs to a small group of wineries leading the contemporary Grenache movement in Australia, working with fruit from McLaren Vale and the Barossa's Eden Valley to craft wines that stand alongside the very best in the world.
We have enduring partnerships with some of Australia's finest Grenache growers — and have become a genuine authority on the variety. We're the only winery to have won the Halliday Wine Companion Grenache of the Year three times and simultaneously held the Wine of the Year and Red Wine of the Year from Australia's most respected publications.
Our Philosophy
We love experimenting and trialling from our base in the Adelaide Hills, working on the principle that if we haven't made at least one mistake each vintage, we haven't been trying hard enough.
We pick fruit on the way up rather than on the way down, doing as little as possible in the winery to let each site speak clearly.
We source from some of the best vineyard sites in South Australia's most iconic regions, working closely with growers who share our belief that a vineyard's character should be faithfully carried through to the bottle. Over the years we've gained access to sites we only dreamed of in the early days — and feel privileged to craft wines from Australia's viticultural history.
Award Winning, Sustainable, Small Batch Grenache, Shiraz & Chardonnay from South Australia’s Iconic Vineyards
Explore Regions
At Thistledown we craft elegant, energetic, detailed and contemporary wines. We feel privileged to work with incredible old vines whose fruit helps us faithfully translate site to bottle.
We acknowledge, and pay our respects to, the Kaurna, Peramangk, Ngarrindjeri, Ngawadi and Ngadjuri people who are the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work and source our fruit. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Giles' Approach to Winemaking
Our job is to coax fruit from remarkable sites into bottle, retaining as much of its energy and personality as possible — from low-yielding, hand-picked fruit harvested 'on the way up'. Our aim is wine of great purity, precision and energy. We're not here to impress with size, weight, alcohol or oak. In the winery, small batches ferment spontaneously, we use minimal extraction, love concrete fermenters, and enjoy the detail that oak can bring — but not its dominating flavour.
We started with a vision to produce wines that are definitively of their place. That's not a grand claim — it's simply about making wines that reflect the personality of the site, the growers, and of course ourselves.
We love wines with life, vibrancy, texture, tension and drinking appeal. To achieve this, we source only from growers who share our vision and are prepared to work with us to deliver pristine fruit to the winery.