O’Leary Walker Claire Reserve Shiraz 2024
- 94
- $120
- Drink by: 2026-2041
Share
The team’s premium Shiraz from the Clare Valley, from an excellent vintage, the fruit hails from a 130-year-old dry grown vineyard in the Polish Hill River sub-region. The vineyard is certified organic. Built for the long haul, fermentation is with wild yeasts with hand-plunging up to four times a day and then time on skins, post fermentation. The usual MO here is maturation in French oak barriques for thirty months, the first twelve months in new oak before the wine is transferred to older oak for the last eighteen. An opaque maroon hue with a dark magenta rim, on the nose we have notes of licorice, black cherries, cloves, coffee grinds, dry herbs, truffles and chocolate. There is good focus here and the wine has energy and balance. Bright acidity runs the length through to sleek tannins. A wine of persistence. This should provide pleasure over the next ten to fifteen years.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
