Thistledown Cunning Plan Shiraz

Great depth of ripe plum and blackberry fruit flavours. A full bodied wine with a succulent palate, lively spices and fine velvety tannins.

 

The beautiful region of McLaren Vale is bounded by the Gulf to the West and the various ranges to the East and North. Geologically one of the most diverse regions on earth, it has long been the home to some of Australia’s finest expressions of Shiraz. Our fruit comes from the Moray Park vineyard in the McLaren Flat sub-region. Low yielding and ultra-intense, we handle the fruit gently to capture the delicious berry fruit character, overlaid with subtle wood-spice. 

Rare is the vintage that combines good yields and high quality but 2021 was just that. A remarkable vintage in that it was once again pandemic affected but that it was measured and mild with none of the heat spikes or drought conditions of recent years. With good levels of winter rains filling soil profiles, the mild weather with intermittent rains throughout the growing and ripening season ensured that fruit ripened over a long
period of time and the vintage was one of the longest in recent history. The results are spectacular, healthy fruit, moderate sugars and complex flavours, have resulted in wines of beautiful balance, fragrance and varietal typicity.

Winemaking is simple with The Cunning Plan. Take perfectly balanced fruit, pick, gently crush to preserve whole berries and allow to soak for 4 days prior to a wild fermentation. Pressed off to 300 litre French hogsheads, of which 15% are new, where the wine ages for 10 months prior to bottling unfined and unfiltered.