O’Leary Walker The Sleeper Reserve Shiraz 2024
- 95
- $90
- Drink by: 2026-2040
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The Sleeper is anything but. Hails from one of the oldest bocks in Williamstown, Barossa Valley, planted 1946, dry grown and low yielding. Deep, dark purple hues give a clue to what is to follow. It’s deep, all right. Concentrated and intense in aroma with a penetrating scent of dark berries, plum, cassis, blackberries, red earth, leaf with autumnal notes rising. Warm, inviting and just a little edgy this Barossa Shiraz comes destined to be cellared further but it’s mighty hard to not open and enjoy right now such is the beautiful integrated nature of the wine. Dense and yet elegant with a swathe of blackberry, plum, cassis and dark berries running across the palate with chocolate, woody spices and a splash of leafy herbs. Comes edged in firm, fine tannins and finishes on a long leafy-herbal-earthy fresh note. Reserved for “stand out” years, this is the fourth release since the first in 2003. The Sleeper awakens . . .
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.
