O’Leary Walker finds its place in the Hills
Clare Valley winery O’Leary Walker solves a wine marketing problem by buying a brewery.
O’Leary Walker Winemakers First Past The Post Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2015
$23 at the cellar; 13.5% alcohol; screw cap; 92 points
O’Leary Walker, aka David and Nick, were having a little trouble with merging the identities of their famous Clare wines with the Adelaide Hills beauties they make from the O’Leary family’s long-held vineyards at Oakbank – David’s grandfather bought his first vineyard there in 1912, but the tribe had been there before that. Various branches of the family have now assembled a fine suite of vineyards whose fruit is eagerly sought by various famous makers.
I assure you David and Nick get the best pick.
But folks were a little confused about this Clare Valley/Adelaide Hills dichotomy under the same O’Leary Walker labelling. So what did the lads do for clarification? In July this year they bought the old Johnston Family Brewery and cordial factory right beside the Oakbank Racecourse on the Onkaparinga, that’s what they did. It’s already open as the tasting room for their freshly-liveried Adelaide Hills wines.
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Bits of one or more generations of most original Oakbank folks have worked at Johnno’s at some stage or another. David’s dad worked there. His grandfather was the company accountant. The Johnnos started work there setting up farms for making malting barley in 1840. Harry Dove Young and Old Man Johnston invented the Oakbank Races there in the stables.
This is a wicked little slip of a drink. Rather than coming decked with lumberjack sophistry from the cooperage, it has just the right splice of oak holding it tight without ever dominating its healthy clingstone peach and lime pith bouquet. It has a neat edge of the prickle of spring hay and flowery meadow and the faintest insinuation of white pepper.
As you’d then expect, the drinking is comfortable and easy. Those fruits are there, but by this stage they’ve become wine, not fruit. There’s a touch of butterscotch; a crunch of cinder honey toffee; just the right basement of natural grape acidity. While modest and polite, the damn thing is far too slippery. It went just dinky with the vongole at lunch in those renovated stables yesterday. It’s the sort of flavour you welcome to lounge around your receptors as long as it likes. Which is what it does, without ever getting in the way. About all it fails to do is the dishes. Just nice.
And a spiffing little price, too!
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O’Leary Walker Winemakers The Bookies’ Bag Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2014
$25 at the cellar; 14% alcohol; screw cap; 92+ points
More complex than the Chardonnay – no surprise – this is its most appropriate follow-up. It’s toasty and glowering in a way, with all those deep black and blue berries settling in a fine compote with the juice of ripe limes and a dusting of musky confectioner’s sugar.
I reckon it even has some juniper. Lovely blue tannins in dried ripe juniper.
The flavour is just verging on authoritative, but it’s never threatening or opulent. It’s slick of form, tapering into a fine funnel of gentle dry tannins, with that irreplaceable natural acidity winding the kisser into a dribble anticipatory pucker.
There are many who measure the success of their lives by the number of ducks they’ve devoured. Every single one of these would add value by adding this to the equation. It is totally unpretentious, yet precisely Pinot.
If you don’t do feathers, try shiitake with that exquisitely quirky dehydrated cucumber/loofah the Cantonese pronounce as chook sung, and reconstitute with a little ginger and garlic. Or shiitake with XO and bok choy. Friggin yum, China!
Once again, it’s at a price that makes me giggle. This should be a delight for honest restaurants to stock.
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