Thistledown Cunning Plan Shiraz 2023

Ah, here.

This is a bona fide, stone-wall, humdinger of a red. Though there is enough reason in its site selection, ancient vines, context and back story to make you sit up and look, you'll forget them all with the first sumptuous, juicy, mouth-filling glass. It's akin to chomping on a bowl of overripe summer fruit.

It is dry as a bone but with a rich glycerol content that allows for the tannins to feel velvety, the mouth-feel to be broad and mouth-coating and for an unapologetically gorgeous and approachable wine. This is a wine with which you'll quickly make very good friends...

Blackberry, black cherry and plum fruits and spices of nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla sit in perfect balance, delivered effortlessly and charmingly in a broad but balanced wine.

This is the style of Shiraz that won the wine world from many tired French wines in the early 1990s, yet sadly, too few producers are able to make wines like this at this price point any longer.

The value is sensational.

The Thistledown winery has given us, in this particular project, a stellar wine at an incredible price. It really will serve as a gateway to the entire range of their very select range of site-, grape- and vineyard-specific wines that come in at increasing increments. And we're fully aware that there may well be many who simply try this wine and not go any further. We couldn't blame you at all.