The barrister leading the Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry has raised questions about whether the information leading to Premier Barry O’Farrell’s resignation was strategically leaked to the media to bring him down.

In the final minutes of a marathon 23-day inquiry into a company linked to the Obeid family, the man who admitted he gave Mr O’Farrell the Penfolds Grange Hermitage was challenged about how the media knew about the undeclared gift ‘‘before ICAC did’’.

Former Australian Water Holdings chief executive Nick Di Girolamo, a Liberal Party fund-raiser and an associate of the Obeid family, was asked whether he had told the former Liberal energy minister Chris Hartcher about the gift of a $3000 bottle of wine, which was sent by courier to the Premier’s Roseville home on April 20, 2011.