O’Leary Walker Grüner Riesling 2023

This is a case of the old Clare Valley hand – Riesling – rubbing shoulders with an exciting newcomer – Grüner Veltliner. It’s a 50-50 partnership that they share, although close your eyes and taste and it must be said that the intensity of Clare Valley Riesling tends to shine the brighter, with Grüner bringing a lovely textural quality to the finished wine. Together, they work well. Enticing wafts of lemon, grapefruit pith, lime skin with lifted apple blossom aromatic aromas. Zesty, clean and youthful to taste. There’s plenty of zippy acidity in play here in tandem with a gentle texture. The palate is evolving with the delicacy of stewed apple and pear there but will become a little more embedded and pronounced . . . or that would be nice. There’s a lot to enjoy right now in this meeting of like-minded grape varieties.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic