O'Leary Walker Tasting

[Gerard Connors]

Dear All,

I was at Cru Bar last week and made a mental note that an O'LW tasting was on the following week. Somehow, my wine-related mental notes always seem to pop up at just the right time, so I remembered as I was leaving work tonight that it was on, and picked up Rachel on the way through.

Hosted by O'Leary Walker marketing and sales manager, Aaron Brasher, (who BTW seemed like a top bloke who really knew his stuff) the following wines were on tasting:

Polish Hill Riesling 2003

Clear pale, ripe nose of tropical fruits, followed on the full bodied palate by heaps of tropical and appley fruit and crisp acid, finishing with sound length and a hint of sweetness (presumably fruit sweetness and not residual sugar?) in good balance with the acidity. Served slightly warm, this did not show as well as the Watervale. 90/100

Watervale Rieslnig 2003

Clear pale, gorgeous nose of talcum powder, florals and flinty/pebbley minerality, the palate is focused and intense, crystal clear varietal flavours with a great mineral flinty finish, this wine has my preferred riesling taste spectrum and outstanding length. I would rate this very close to the Grosset PH tasted one week ago, and would love to try them head to head. 96/100

At this point I commented to Aaron that I thought the flavour spectrums were the complete opposite of the Grossets - he entirely agreed, informing me the Watervale is grown on a very slatey soil.

Clare Semillon 2002

Green pea, herbaceous, lanolin, clean palate, solid length. Well made wine but I'm indifferent - 87/100.

Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2001

Very secondary on both nose and palate - nougat, marzipan, oatmeal, nutty finish. Nice length. 87/100

Clare McLaren Shiraz 2002

Deep red, sweet verging on syrupy nose, big sweet luscious fruit with seductive oak, this wine is a huge mouthfull for $20 and offers great length and superb value. Bought a bottle to try at length, and my notes were as follows:

Deep red
Sweet black fruits, chocolate, malty oak
The palate entry is huge, glycerol mouthfeel, very sweet, rich, intense black fruit and vanilla malt oak, the finish is long, persistent and features fine tannins, and is only somewhat marred by slightly evident (14.5%) alcohol, although that's really splitting hairs on what is a fantastic wine for the price.

93+/100 Value Excellent

I rate this up with the Tim Adams 2002 as my fave 02 shiraz so far, slightly ahead of the well rated Shotfire 2002.

OLW continue to impress the critics and they're impressing the punters like me too with outstandingly priced wines like these.

Cheers

Ged

[David Lole]

Hello Ged,

The O'L-W Watervale certainly hits the spot! I tried it last month and thought it about 'excellent'. Your floral/pebbley/flinty descriptors match my recall of the wine. Yet another example of a Clare producer's 2003 that impresses more than the 2002. Thanks for the notes.