Riesling in the years

  CLICK HERE  to return to the home page where there are details about the new columnist in the Irish Examiner Weekend.

WINE fans in my parish (Cork) may have noticed a few interesting changes for the better recently in that twilight zone somewhere between a few drinks and casual dining. Quite a few places are providing new and improved fun. I’ll return to some others later but because it combines two of my enthusiasms – wine and retro stuff – the last shall be first: a venue that opened three days ago.

Muted tones and shadows in Mayne’s on Pembroke St, Cork.

Arthur Mayne

7, Pembroke Street, Cork
Telegrams: “Mayne Pharmacist”

You know those time capsule buildings? For instance thisTube station sealed off in 1959 and only reopened in 2010 still festooned with original posters advertising the latest works of Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth and Alec Guinness? Yeah, that kind of thing.  That’s what you need to bear in mind when you go in to Arthur Mayne Pharmacy & Wine Garden.

A bar serving mainly wine, coffees and simple plates of food, it is stuffed to the gunwhales with the stock, fittings and equipment you might find in an Irish pharmacy from the recent to the distant past. Everywhere you look, there are many decades’ worth of jars and phials, essences and unguents. Registers, ledgers and till rolls. When done well, collections of memorabilia can strike an atmospheric chord in a restaurant or bar. But there’s something special about this particular immersive retro 3D collection – because every scrap you see around you is the day-to-day stock in trade and equipment of the chemists shop that traded from this same building until recently. I mean everything – from the prescription ledgers under glass on the counter, down to the cardboard rolls of coppers (change as packaged and issued by the bank some time before decimalisation) among other ephemera in the front window.

The big difference between the example of the Tube station above and Arthur Mayne premises is that there’s nothing abandoned about the latter. Far from it. It was a going concern until recently (voluntarily ceding its pharmacist’s permit only in February 2011) and the pharmacist and leaseholder since the 1940s, Jim Byrne, has handed over the whole thing – lock, stock and Hai Karate – to Benny McCabe who has made only such changes and renovation as were necessary to turn it into a stylish wine bar. Benny is well known in Cork for the diverse collection of venues he has gradually developed over the years. There are the pubs (The Oval, South Main Street, The Mutton Lane Inn off St Patrick’s Street and Sin É on Coburg Street); a pub and restaurant, The Bodega on the Coal Quay; and the pub /night club, The Crane Lane on Phoenix Street, onto which Arthur Mayne connects.

Each is atmospheric and idiosyncratic: cosy memorabilia-stuffed Sin É ringing with traditional and folk music; family-friendly Sunday lunches amid the bevelled glass and polished wood of the Bodega.

Just before the new bar opened, Tommy Barker talked to Benny and other people behind the transition. As he points out, the chemist’s shop was a major photo processing lab, once the biggest in Munster it seems. The new venue will be a magnet for photographers, not only because it’s so photogenic, but because the stock in the display cabinets includes quite an arc of picture-making, from Box Brownies to Polaroid and Instamatics – all technologies which have been eclipsed in living memory. Cameras, projectors, photos and slides. Agfa. Fuji. And as a wistful reminder of relentless change, Kodak, which was folding and fading as Maynes was being renovated, is here too.

You can buy retro stuff by the yard. This, though, is palpably different – not only because it’s so specific to the site, but also because of the way it’s been curated. Alongside the dusty aphothecary jars, each with traces of its original contents, are brands of hairspray, razor blades, bath salts and condoms dating close to the present day.  1960s, 1970s, 1980s… It’s like a 3D Reeling In The Years. You may betray your age by which brands you recognise. Or even used. Elastoplast, Silvikrin, Rave.

The menu is simple and inexpensive

They’ve all been accorded similar space and the same respect as those ancient generic glass jars, each bearing the dust it has earned down the decades. There’s something lovely about this brand archaeology. It would be a mistake to fetishise the items themselves – they’re only things after all, and wallowing in such sentimentality is surely an abandonment of the real world. But they are tangible mementoes, a dip into a world just as real as ours is, to the people who milled about the location you’re sitting in. We live in the present, but can dream of other times.

Unsurprisingly, given the riches in the cabinets, the decor is visually stripped back, all muted tones and shadows. Even the doors on the fridges behind the counter are opaque so we’re spared the glare of fluorescent light bouncing off a platoon of beer bottles: what you can see is the company you’re in, set against a century’s worth of memorabilia bearing the shadows of other people who have passed this way before you.

So. Anyone for a glass of wine?

The enomatic dispensers at Mayne’s.

Oddly, given its emphasis on the passage of time, Maynes has an up-to-the-minute system designed to press the pause button on time. I’ve long been a fan of the enowine dispenser system and am delighted to see it used in a bar in my hometown. This and other nitrogen-fed systems provide a way to keep wine in the same condition as the moment it was opened. You may be familiar with it from Eno Wine’s shop at the IFSC in Dublin, or at Bubble Brothers in the Marina in Cork. I’ve also seen it at pro tastings such as London Wine Fair. It allows a bar to greatly expand the number and variety of wines it can feasibly offer – after all, a barkeep can’t reliably expect to sell out every left-field minority interest wine every two days – but in a less labour-initensive way than the open-and-reseal systems many wine bars use.

Bottles are lined up in glass-fronted temperature-controlled cabinets. Each has a tube leading from the bottom of the bottle to a nozzle at the front. And as each serving of wine is dispensed, the volume displaced is replaced by a shot of inert gas (nitrogen). No air in there at any stage. It’s as if you’d just opened the bottle each time.

Repeat prescription: Mayne’s debit card.

But arguably the bigger innovation with the system as seen in Mayne’s is that it’s self-service, and paid for with a debit card. You charge up your card with a tenner or whatever over the counter and off you go, brandishing your glass, to the wall of enowine cabinets. A little display over each bottle shows the price for each of the three different size measures it will dispense. (Here I have to lapse into uncustomary vagueness: unlike the tastings I attend, which are like a mashup of sensory lab and trade fair, I have absolutely no intention of milling about in a bar wth a notebook and pen. It would be a bit intrusive I think and I’d feel like a right gowl doing it. Hence I have neither the precise names of the wines, nor tasting notes, nor the volumes of wine in each measure. I might add them later).

In the absence of numbers I’ve named the three measures as follows.

♦ The taoscán Nowhere near what we’d sit down to sip, this is a similar measure to what you might pour at a tasting session. Because, crucially, it provides more than enough to judge the colour, smell and taste of the wine in hand. And indeed enjoy a sensory journey. You could really have fun working your way through the cabinets trying each wine one after another, pausing to properly swirl and sniff each. If you’ve never done it, please do: Anyone who’s done so will tell you what a revelation it can be, that it will change the way you view wine for the better. Even wines you don’t like the look of: try them. Given that this bar has made it so easy for you, it’d be a shame to pass up the chance. And that’s the way to choose a wine to settle down with, not the diktat of any expert or me.  Hurrah!
♦ Oh that’s a daycent glass This is what I would call a glass of wine. It’s the size I’d choose to pour at home or out and about, and it’s the size I’d drink at Mayne’s when I’d settled on one bottle after dallying with the small taoscáns above. This size also has the benefit of leaving plenty of room in the glass for air – which you should really regard as a component of your glass of wine. To me, this middle size is the Goldilocks serving – neither too big nor too small. Just right.
♦Ah lads, steady on All right, I confess I haven’t actually seen this measure. But really I see no point in pouring any more than the middle size. But sure don’t mind me. Suit yourself, you rascal.

In my brief look around I particularly enjoyed some wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero as well as an outstanding spicy torrontés. It’s fitting that Maynes happens to have a torrontés on offer and that it turned out to be so pleasing to at least one punter (me). Because that’s a perfect example of the system in action and the benefits it brings – to bar owners certainly, but also to any of us consumers who get over our reticence and use the opportunity to taste widely (L’Atitude 51 also serves a choice of measures from its extensive list).

I love the  torrontés grape  and coincidentally, I’m recommending one in my column in tomorrow’s Irish Examiner. But it’s a bit of an unknown. I can’t envisage too many people committing to a whole glassful from a standing start. And if they did, many of them wouldn’t like its honeyish apparent sweetness.

But made available for convenient tasting as one of a series, each costing you little over a euro, delightful left-field minority-interest wines like this will find the people who don’t yet realise they love them. And that’s a win as far as I’m concerned.

About this post
This is all new to me. You won’t find any pub or wine bar antics in the columns I used to write for The Irish Examiner which were almost entirely about home entertaining – off-trade wines, beers and ciders. But a sense that something’s stirring has prompted me to lunge for the first time into a few blog posts about bars. I don’t intend reviewing bars. To do so properly I would have to devote far more time and attention than I can afford right now. But do stand by for an occasional eruption of enthusiasm here about places I’ve had a good time in. Broadly in keeping with those newspaper columns, I keep things simple and straightforward by not accepting complimentary drinks etc. And if I have any connection with a venue I mention, I will declare that interest.

As well as three contrasting beer specialists along the north channel of the river (Franciscan Well, Bierhaus and Abbot’s Ale House) recent revelations include The Boqueria on Bridge Street, L’Atitude 51, where An Crúibín used to be, The Pav on Carey’s Lane and Le Chateau on Pana. Each has gone a long way to catering for people who have switched to home entertaining and want to emulate that comfort and quality on their increasingly rare forays into town. I’ll come back to those venues and more on this blog in a while.    ♦

Food and drinks events

HERE are some delicious food and drinks events you might enjoy, while over here on this post I’m following up on my column in the Irish Examiner about last week’s New Zealand Wine Fair with further Kiwi whites I’d recommend.

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█ Feb 10 to 12 — Cask-conditioned beers in Cork

The Franciscan Well pub and brewery is celebrating the revival of a lost tradition with a weekend showcase of cask-conditioned winter beers. Nowadays, the industry standard is for draught beers that are all but inert, pumped by gas into your pint glass.  In contrast, these are ‘live’ beers which undergo fermentation in cask.

You can’t turn back time but, side-by-side with their more obviously commercial and popular bottled or kegged beers,  our best and most forward-looking small breweries  in Ireland and the UK are championing hand-pumped cask beers. This weekend, the Franciscan Well is showcasing 15 of them, all dispensed according to the standards specified by CAMRA. I haven’t seen the line-up of brews and breweries yet but, being a selection of winter beers, you can expect pints from the darker, deeper end of the spectrum.  Think of it as a last hurrah of wintertime as we hurtle towards spring.

♦ The Franciscan Well Brewery & Brew Pub, North Mall, Cork (021-4393434;  www.franciscanwellbrewery.com) is open daily at 3pm, closing at 11.30pm daily except Saturdays (12.30am) and Sundays (11 pm).

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IF you’re involved in public beer or wine events anywhere in Ireland, and would like them flagged here and in the Irish Examiner, please email me the info.  My contact details are here. Don’t bother with pictures, PDFs etc — just the basic info, ideally three weeks in advance to get in ahead of print deadlines.

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█ Feb 14 — Love and romance in the English Market, Cork 

Valentine's Night Threshold fundraiser at the Farm Gate in the English Market, Cork.

St Valentine’s night is all about dinner à deux whether at home or, unburdened by kitchen anxiety, in a restaurant. And here’s to more of that.

But many people feel excluded by the whole two-by-two thing. Whether you’re in the tentative connected-but-uncommitted early days, or settled into a well-worn relationship, it can all be a bit much. Let alone the many people single by chance or by choice. Plus, many couples grabbing a rare night out (I’m particularly thinking of parents here) who’d love to dine out together — but in the company of their friends.

Which is where Threshold and the Farm Gate Café come in.

They’re hosting a fundraising dinner and celebration from 7pm on Valentine’s night that ought to appeal to everyone — couples, singles or whatever. The award-winning restaurant will serve up top-class food, drinks (the latter supported by Irish Distillers, whose wine list included the likes of Brancott Estate and Campo Viejo) and entertainment — and all for only €50 a head.

Threshold is a national organisation providing free, confidential advice and advocacy in relation to housing and tenancy. The registered charity also campaigns on the issues, and — as a glance at their site at www.threshold.ie will tell you — is an invaluable source of practical, sensible information

The restaurant is of course normally open only 9am to 5pm during the market’s working day, so it’s a rare opportunity to dine at nighttime in the atmospheric market building. See corkenglishmarket.ie for more about the restaurant and the market. Couples will be accommodated of course but much of the seating will be at shared big tables. It sounds like a lot of fun and, who knows, new romance could bloom on the night!

For tickets, drop into the Farm Gate, email advicecork@threshold.ie or call Threshold on 021-4278848.

█ Feb 14 – Valentine’s night at On The Pig’s Back Café

On The Pig’s Back, market neighbours of the Farm Gate – are decamping to their Douglas venue for a night of love and – intriguingly – murder. Greenshine (Noel Shine, Mary Greene and Ellie Shine) will present a night of love songs and murder ballads on Tues  Feb 14 from 8pm at On the Pig’s Back Café Deli in St Patrick’s Mills, Douglas, Cork. Booking (€10 from either of the On The Pig’s Back outlets or on 021-4617832) is essential. And a menu of bubbles, wines & chocolates is available too.

█ Feb 17 – Big tasting at ely, Dublin

Try out more than 80 wines in a big open tasting at ely bar & brasserie, IFSC. Tickets are €20 and choose either 6pm or 8pm.

█ Feb 23 — Wine dinner at Hayfield Manor, Cork

The next date in the dairy for Hayfield Manor Wine Society is on Thursday, February 23 with a dinner paired with wines from the Santa Sofia winery in Italy. Executive chef Graeme Campbell and sommelière Sandra Biret-Crowley have matched each of the five courses to five wines. It begins with aperitifs at 7pm, and dinner is served from 7.30pm. The event costs  €79 per person. Book on 021-4845909 or at events@hayfieldmanor.ie.

█ Feb 29 to Mar 2 — Pop-up dinners in three cities

From Vineyards Direct is hosting a series of ‘pop-up ‘ dinners (that is, in locations that aren’t normally restaurants) featuring the wines of the Castello di Potentino vineyards at Monte Amiata near Brunello in Tuscany as follows.
February 29 – Cork City Gaol – 6.30pm to 9pm
March 1 – Limerick City Gallery – 6.30pm to 9pm
March 2 – Dublin, Science Gallery – 6.30pm to 8pm
The latter event is part of the Science Gallery’s Edible exhibit which apparently examines relationships among food, wine, science and nature. Ooh. Interesting. All three events sound attractive especially (to me) the Science Gallery bit. I’ll be looking into this and popping more information up here as I get it.

█ March 5 — Rhone wine tasting and dinner in Cork

On Monday, March 5 from 7.30pm, the Wine Store – aka Simon and Emma Tyrrell – is taking a road trip to Cork’s L’Atitude 51, the new wine café in what used to be The Lobby, as outlined at the top of this page.

There are two parts to the evening. First, Simon will talk guests through six wines (mainly from the Rhône Valley) accompanied by tasty morsels of tapas from L’Atitude’s kitchen.  €15 per person. There will also be the option to stay on for a set menu dinner for just another €15. To book a place for either or both, call L’Atitude 51 on 021 2390219. And see http://thewinestoreireland.wordpress.com/ for more details.   ♦

Buying wine online

HERE’s a list of Ireland’s best wine websites and below are some  general guidelines to getting good wine delivered to your door in time for Christmas day. You should of course bear in mind all the usual caveats when shopping at an online wine retailer. The criteria I’d suggest you consider include…

1. The quality and value of the range of wines it sells;
2. Comprehensive information on each wine, including useful notes;
3. Free or reasonably priced delivery;
4. A range of styles sufficiently substantial to cope with different needs or occasions;
5. Ease of use of the site;
6. Fun and/or useful extras such as blogs, links and more information about wine.

There is also one overriding hygiene factor: clear and accurate information on price, delivery, terms and conditions made clear to the shopper before s/he starts the purchasing process. If any of those issues are in question, forget about it.

Specifically, any wine website worth looking at should be…

VERSATILE: Most sites offer two ways to buy: You can choose one of their pre-picked selections, or you can put together your own mixed cases will-nilly.

INFORMATIVE:It’ll list every wine’s full name, vintage and regional designation. It ought to have a little bit of further information about the wine’s producer and the region.

UNAMBIGUOUS: One of the things you should check immediately – that the site has unambiguous information about
1 minimum order
2 delivery charge, if any.*
3 extra costs, if any.
*The first two points can be related, as often delivery is free if you order over a certain value or volume.
The third point is ultra-important. There should be no extra costs, end of story.*

AUTHORITATIVE: If there are notes about the wines, ask yourself if someone has actually tasted the wine and tried to communicate something of its character. Or is it just vaguely positive-sounding blurb.

UP TO DATE: It’s quite possible that a site promising “sizzling bargains for summer 2007” might be selling top class wines at good prices. But really you’d have more confidence in the ones that have accurate up-to-date information.

I’d be highly sceptical of any site that pops in a cost such as insurance on top of the list price. In particular, watch out for VAT. It is an offence for a retailer to advertise consumer goods without its VAT component.

Yet one site, http://www.throughthegrapevine.ie, (which should not be confused with the estimable http://www.onthegrapevine.ie) promotes itself as supplying individual customers, providing wedding wines etc. However, it does not include VAT in its list prices, that component being added in later in the purchase process. Some people (yes I mean me) get a bit fuzzy about numbers when they go into three figures and I can imagine a less-than-alert wine buyer innocently clicking ‘buy’ without realising his or her wines have gotten a whole lot dearer.
How can this site justify this? Well it also sells business-to-business and as such is entitled to show ex-VAT prices. But by rights they should emulate those flyers from Dell which clearly show both prices for business and private customers.

Through The Grapevine may not be doing anything illegal but really it is a bit cheesy to say the least and you don’t need people like that in your life. Puh.

El Coto Crianza

Oh and apart from all that, the corporate or private shopper may do better elsewhere anyway. Last time I compared, Through The Grapevine listed El Coto De Rioja Crianza 2004/05 as €120 for a 6-bottle case. Add in €25.80  in VAT and the total comes to €145.80, meaning you’re stumping up over €24 every time you brandish your corkscrew. A high-end premium wine then? Break it out for special occasions?

Well hang on, look up another site,  www.karwigwines.ie, and there it is, El Coto Crianza [not to be confused with the Gran Reserva] the same wine for €14.15 a bottle straight up, VAT included. Delivery is free if you buy the right quantity. And even if you’re buying less than that, the €9.50 delivery charge is swallowed up by the 5% case discount  or the 10% discount on orders worth more than €200.

The point is — tame your credulity and shop around. If you’ve any comments or questions, please drop me a line at blake[dot]creedon[at]examiner.ie. ♦

AUTHORITATIVE

Seafood, wine — and a cracking new beer

Howling Gale Ale

THIS week in the Irish Examiner Weekend I’m looking at food and wine matching, plus a smashing new beer brewed in Mitchelstown Co Cork. There’s more about Howling Gale Ale and Eight Degrees Brewing’s growing list of stockists below. First though, the food and wine…

PAIRING wine and food is like sex — both cause a heap of unnecessary anxiety, but with a bit of empathy and a light-hearted attitude they can bring untold pleasure and fun. I’m taking a look at it (wine matching that is, not sex) in today’s Weekend section of the Irish Examiner and you also can see it online here. For rhetorical purposes I’ve started by dismissing two extremes – the hopelessly general idea that a wine is “great with pasta” at one end; at the other, those terrifyingly specific lists you’ll see suggesting you simply must get a Domaine De Wotsit when shark toasties are on the menu.

I am suggesting some wines – five whites and one red – to go with some very broad types of seafood dishes, but I hope readers will regard these as inspiration rather than prescriptions.

It’s most helpful to view wine as an ingredient, working with the others on your plate. The wine will bring its own payload of contrasting and complementary elements to the other components via a heap of fruit flavours, but also through the key components of acidity, texture, sweetness and, in reds only, tannin.

One great lazy tip when matching wine to food: If the recipe is more or less ‘traditional’, look to its homeplace for inspiration. The most blindingly obvious of these has to be Boeuf bourgignon with pinot. So it is with seafood which is the topic I’m looking at today: you won’t go far wrong by trawling (sorry) the seafaring traditions along Europe’s Atlantic seaboard. Sailing from north to south, the highlights would include…

♦ Bordeaux blanc, surely the most versatile white wine for seafood
♦ the shamefully overlooked delights of soft Muscadet de Sėvre et Maine sur lie,
♦ Fashionable and therefore saucily-priced Albariño from Galicia and its counterpart,
♦ Alvarinho from Portugal which is sadly under-represented on our shelves
♦ Portugal’s other great white, modestly-priced, simple (and generally low alcohol) Vinho Verde branco

There are further delights when you plunge into the Med – such as the shamefully overlooked fish-friendly wine from the Coteaux de Languedoc, Picpoul de Pinet. Bubble Brothers have a cracking one for €12.

Needless to say these wine styles have been emulated with great success in the new world. For instance, by Bordeaux, I really mean sauvignon blanc & semillon blend wherever it is made (and, by red Bordeaux, cabernet sauvignon & merlot).

Finally, a word about red wines. The “red with meat, white with fish” isn’t the worst rule of thumb: Tannin (found only in reds) is certainly a friend to red meat. But some of the lightest reds can go beautifully with seafood dishes — especially the more robust tomatoey recipes, and in today’s column I’m suggesting a Tarrango made by Brown Brothers. You’ll often see pinot noir (particularly Bourgogne) suggested, as well as its southerly cousin, Beaujolais. This might be a helpful suggestion but remember it’s based on a somewhat out-of-date presumption: the breadth, alcoholic strength and tannicity of red wines from these regions has edged up in recent decades. But as I suggest in my column, please do experiment and enjoy.  ♦

ALSO this week in the Irish Examiner Weekend I’m suggesting Eight Degrees Howling Gale Ale as beer of the week. I’d certainly enjoyed the draught version at its launch during the Franciscan Well‘s beer fest at Easter. But my focus is exclusively on take-home beer and wine, so bottle is where it’s at. And Howling Gale is certainly there.

This isn’t just a promising first attempt – it’s a highly accomplished and beautifully-weighted ale. I’d certainly enjoy a bottle myself, and would expect dedicated beer fans to do likewise. But the singular achievement of this authentic beer is that it’s so simpatico: I’d be very confident that people more accustomed to mass-market beers would enjoy it too. See the brewery’s website at www.eightdegrees.ie for more.

Eight Degrees Howling Gale Ale is available online at www.Drinkstore.ie and in the stockists below. All of them may sell the beer to take home, but the ones in bold certainly do.

Cork

city & surrounding areas
Abbot Ale House, 17 Devonshire St, Cork
Bierhaus Cork, Popes Quay, Cork
Blairs Inn, Cloghroe, Blarney, Cork
Bradleys Off Licence, North Main Street, Cork
Fenns Quay, 5 Sheares Street, Cork
Franciscan Well, 14 North Mall, Cork
county
Costcutter, Amber Garage, Fermoy, Co Cork
Cronins Pub, Crosshaven, Co Cork
Springfort Hall Hotel, Mallow, Cork
Ballyvolane House, Castlelyons, Co Cork
Costelloes Malthouse, Clonakilty, Co Cork
The Clonakilty Hotel, Clonakilty, Co Cork
Fields Supervalu, Skibereen, Co Cork
West Cork Hotel, Skibereen, Co Cork
The Good Things Cafe, Durrus, Co Cork
Glandore Inn, Glandore, Co Cork

Dublin

central
Against the Grain, 11 Wexford Street, D2
Bull and Castle, Lord Edward Street, Christchurch, D2
Crackbird, 34 South William St, D2
Deveney’s Dundrum, 31 Main Street, Dundrum, D14 
The Village Bar, 26 Wexford St, D2
north
L Mulligan Grocer, 18 Stoneybatter, D7
McHughs Off-licence, 57 Kilbarrack Rd, D5
McHughs Off-licence, 25e Malahide Rd, D5
http://www.Drinkstore.ie, 87 Manor St, D7
south
D-Six Off-licence, 163 Harold’s Cross Road, D6
Redmond’s of Ranelagh, 25 Ranelagh, D6
Next Door, 23-25 Sundrive Road, Kimmage, D12
Claremont Railway Union Lawn Tennis Club, Park Avenue, Sandymount, D4

Galway

Cases Wine Warehouse, Tuam Rd, Galway

Waterford

Number Five Off-licence, Tyrone Rd, Lismore Park, Waterford
O’Brien Chop house, Lismore, Waterford

Wicklow

Hollands Fine Wines, 78 – 80 Main Street, Bray ♦

A treat and a bargain

Neil Ellis of Stellenbosch in South Africa is centre stage at three events in Cork and Dublin next week. Each of the events is both a treat and a bargain.

The restaurant at Hayfield Manor - one of the venues for the highly promising Neil Ellis events

♦ Seafood & Sauvignon  is the headline for a wine dinner on Monday  at 7.30pm at the Hayfield Manor Hotel in Cork, costing a remarkable €69 a head all-in. Neil will introduce the wines chosen to accompany each of the five courses. The five-star hotel is also offering a €165pps package which includes dinner and breakfast. See the link here or phone 21-4845900 for more details.
To whet your appetite, here‘s what Jack Power had to say about the restaurant in his recent review.
♦ The following night, from 5pm to 7pm, the second Ouzos at 39 Main Street in Blackrock, Co Dublin is hosting an open-ended “walk around” tasting accompanied by seafood canapés, with Neil on hand to answer any questions you may have about his wines. Tickets are €15 per person, or €25 for two.
♦ Alternatively, at 8pm, enjoy a four-course winemaker’s dinner at Ouzos complemented by Neil Ellis’s wines for €60 a head.

♦ While we’re at it, Superquinn is hosting a wine tasting evening at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8 on Thursday May 19 from 6.30pm to 8.30pm, presented by Jean Smullen. The wines will be accompanied by party foods and nibbles, for €18 a head.  Email jean@jeansmullen.com or phone  086-8168468.

In the Examiner on Saturday I’ll be giving the once-over to two contrasting styles of sweet wine — fully-fledged dessert stickies, and delicious off-dry whites. In my opinion, the tender sweetness and slightly lower alcohol of the latter group make them ideal for the warmer weather that is surely our due.  ♦

Blake’s Festive Fifty

THIS blog and my column in the Irish Examiner can never provide what they set out to inspire — namely, the pleasure of a glass of fine wine in good company.

So I was delighted to accept an opportunity offered to me by John McDonnell of Wine Australia Ireland earlier this summer.  They’ve given me free rein to pick a few dozen of my favourite wines from Australia, regardless of price, styles or retailer. In return, they’d provide the wine and the venue for a one-off wine-tasting evening, namely…

Blake’s Favourite Fifty Australians

The list I’ve put together is a mouth-watering range of reds, whites, rosés, sparkling and dessert wines.  And, for once, instead of talking at you about how good a particular wine is, we’re  going to be bringing you the wine live and in 3-D.

Wednesday, December 1, from 6pm to 8.30pm
at Cork School of Music, Union Quay.
Tickets are €20.
Booking (via Wine Australia Ireland on 065 7077264) is advisable.

The beautiful Cork School of Music - an inspirational venue.

For the price of a round of drinks, it promises to be a fun evening of tasting (and drinking) fifty top-class wines. We’ll be opening every one of them and serving them on the night along with some tasty bites of grub.

The practical side of the evening is represented by the brochure that everyone attending will get. This details each wine, its recommended retail price, and a  list of stockists — making it a handy shopping list if you’re inspired by any of the wines you encounter at the event.

One unusual aspect of the tasting is that the wines are drawn from right across the trade. We’ve been working with 19 Irish wine importers from well-established names (such as Findlater’s, and Barry & Fitzwilliam) to bright young firms like Classic Drinks who are also based in Cork.

All the wines are available to buy in Ireland, and the list of stockists spans a wide range of retailers from online wine stores and wine specialists such as Bubble Brothers, Curious Wines and O’Donovans, through to supermarkets and independent off-licences.

Another pretty cool aspect of the whole thing is the venue, the award-winning Cork School Of Music on Union Quay, designed by Murray O’Laoire architects and opened in 2007.

This modern, elegant building is a great setting for any event, and I’m delighted we’re holding the tasting there. And there’s more. The School of Music  wouldn’t have been built without a long campaign waged by parents,  students and teachers and their trade unions. In uncertain times, it’s good to remember that with such spirit and effort,  ordinary people can create something so positive for our city.  ♦

By the way, the event should really be named Blake’s Favourite Sixty-Five.  Hacking back the longlist was a pretty cruel task, and I had to leave out lots of great wines. So when I reached 65, I said to hell with it. Happily, John McDonnell is kindly accommodating my indescision, and we will be pouring all sixty-five on that list.

Wednesday, December 1
6pm to 8.30pm at Cork School of Music, Union Quay, Cork.
Tickets are €20 and booking (with Wine Australia Ireland on 065 7077264) is advisable.

Eat Cork. Drink Canada Dry.

On Sunday night, September 26, Ross Lewis (Chapter One) and Pat Kiely (Les Gourmandises) present One Night Only - a banquet in Cork School of Music.

THE inaugural Eat Cork food festival is on from Thursday to Sunday, September 23 to 26, 2010.  It is founded by food writer Dianne Curtin, and food events manager Rose-Anne Kidney of Goldiefish Events.

Thursday sees the whole thing kick off with the judging of the second Grow Bake Cook awards in The Farmgate Café.

Friday and Saturday feature EATcork Nights Out, a pub and restaurant trail supported by Murphy’s [when you're planning what you're up to, don’t forget that Friday is of course also Culture Night].

Saturday includes the Foodies On Foot walking tour through the streets of Cork’s food culture past and present led by one of my heroes, food historian Regina Sexton.

Sunday is the big day, with The English Market open for a pretty impressive list of Free Food Workshops and demonstrations, while the Grand Parade will be abuzz with Cork’s first dedicated Street Food Market, with the focus firmly on locally-produced grub, and plates priced at €3 and €5.

EATcork details

As any festival-goer will tell you, the only way to finish is with a gala. The exclamation mark at the end of Eat Cork is Sunday night’s For One Night Only in Cork School of Music when Ross Lewis of Chapter One restaurant joins forces with Pat Kiely and Soizic Kiely of Les Gourmandises to present a one-off banquet. (I was delighted by the way to see their choice of venue – the beautiful award-winning building is a testament to Gerry Kelly and fellow campaigners without whose work it would never have been built). Get a summary of Eat Cork on Goldiefish or see complete details on the event’s Facebook page.

While I have your attention (you are still there, right?) I think that, apart at all from the other festival elements, Grow Bake Cook is a significant date on the calendar in its own right. Supported by the Community and Enterprise department in Cork City Council, the aim is to seek out, reward and encourage potential new commercial food producers from among amateur enthusiasts.

It’s an excellent initiative, blending the best parts of traditional country fair competitions with the roots-up food enterprise culture celebrated variously by Dianne Curtin in her book The Creators, and by John and Sally McKenna in their Bridgestone Irish Food Guide.

The breadth of the award’s scope is, I think, hinted at in the examples of entrants cited by Dianne on her website:

…these included Alan Tennyson,  a special needs social worker who makes a variety of breads in his spare time, and sells them via a stall at Bandon Farmer’s Market, Carol Aherne,  a student on UCC’s Speciality Food Production course, who makes  yogurt products from the milk of her husband’s dairy herd, and Sherkin island resident Chris Dobbin, creator of speciality beers and wines from locally grown vegetables and wild fruits gathered from the island’s lanes and hedgerows….

I do like the concise name, Eat Cork. It condenses the activity and its whereabouts into just eight characters – or seven in their logo where it’s rendered EATcork.

The name reminds me of an apocryphal story about Brendan Behan. Arriving in Canada, the frequently congested writer was asked what he planned to do while there and replied, “well, I saw an advertisement in Dublin saying ‘Drink Canada Dry’ so I said I’d come over and give it a shot.”

Don’t forget, as I’ve already posted, On The Pig’s Back is organising a French Food & Wine Festival centered mainly in Douglas. ♦

Trimbach tastings and dinners

EVERYONE’S a winner at the wine dinners you’ll see advertised now and then. If you need convincing (and many people do), please scroll down below the bold text for more on why these events work so well. But for those already convinced, let’s get to the meat of the matter…

Trimbach Pinot Blanc

The visit of Jean Trimbach to Ireland next week provides a handful of unmissable (and great value) treats for wine fans.  Jean is a member of the 12th generation of his family making fine rieslings and pinot blancs among others in one of the most underrated and overlooked wine regions, Alsace.

Last time I checked, Trimbach’s wines — many at highly accessible prices — are listed in some of the world’s most highly-regarded restaurants.

♦ First up is the tasting and dinner on Wednesday June 30 at The Twelve, Galway. It costs  €75 all-in. Book on 091 597000 and see www.thetwelvehotel.ie for more.

♦ On Thursday (July 1) from 3.15pm to 4.30pm, Jean will be presenting a talk and tasting at Ballymaloe. There is no charge but places are limited so book now on  021 4652531.

♦ Later that night, Fleming’s Restaurant in Tivoli, Cork. hosts a special dinner and wine night with Jean from 7.30pm. It’s a bargain €65 a head, it will fill up, so you should book now on 021 4821621.

♦ And before next week’s antics, Paddy Borthwick is presenting a tasting of his wines at the HQ of importers and retailers Wines Direct  in Mullingar on Saturday afternoon, June 26.  You can see the range here.

I admire Paddy’s wines enormously, and think four of the five in his range are fantastic value.  But delightfully if you can get to this tasting, you don’t have to take my word for it. As the advert for lozenges used to say, suck it and see.

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I’m surprised there isn’t more clamour for tickets to events like the wine dinners above. Sure, they pretty much all fill up. But they just don’t appear on the radar of many people who would get a great buzz from them. You know who you are.

For a moment, put yourself in the boots of the people putting on these evenings. A wine producer and its distributor get well-focused exposure for their (presumably desirable) wines at a fraction of the cost of advertising. Plus whoever is presenting the wines — be it the winemaker herself or a company ‘ambassador’ —  can be relied on to add a further highly appealing dimension of interest for wine fans, which is invaluable to the salespeople’s mission to build interest in the wines.  The restaurateur is happy to cater to a full house, delivering what could be a fun and memorably sociable evening.

The result of all this leveraging is a fun night out which will usually cost you far, far less than if you were doing a bit of free-range dining out. And despite my generally sceptical mien, I’ve never found the ones I’ve attended to be anything less than pleasant. In some cases they can be downright inspirational, and I expect the Trimbach events listed above will belong to this latter category.  ♦

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The price of wine

HERE’S a half hour of audio I’d suggest to anyone interested in wine – a recent episode of The Food Programme that I heard via the BBC iPlayer (Sundays at 12.30pm; repeated on Mondays at 8pm;  available indefinitely on iPlayer).

Sheila Dillon presents The Food Programme on BBC Radio4 (c) BBC

Presented by Sheila Dillon, the Food Programme is usually devoted to just one topic. It might be a particular food tradition or trend — encompassing its history, a shopper’s guide, and recipes — but more often it’ll be all about the bigger picture,  the economic, political and health aspects of food and drink.

The show I just heard is about off-licences — the drinks sellers trading in the margin left behind by the supermarkets which sell a whopping 70% of alcohol in the UK market. (Yes, the business cost structures in Ireland and Britain are very different, as are the tax regimes, so the markets are quite different.  But they’re sufficiently similar to make the show essential listening over here too).

At one point in the broadcast, reporter Dan Saladino talked to an industry insider, Tesco’s beer, wine and spirits director, Dan Jago. When asked whether heavy discounting of wines by supermarkets was “depriving the wine industry of much-needed investment,” Jago made two interesting points.

“When you have an extraordinarily large oversupply of wine you end up with a supply-and-demand equation that would be the same as any industry,” he said.  “When we [Tesco] are offered vast quantities of wine at very  low prices, one of the things we’d want to do is pass those savings on to our customers…”

In this, Jago is confirming something the industry knows well, but which many wine consumers are still unaware of — or in some cases possibly don’t want to believe — namely, the tectonic shift in the way wine is made and how it’s priced; and also that there is a sustained surplus on world markets.

The wine pyramid

You could picture the world’s wines as being stacked up in a pyramid: At the top, tiny quantities of premium wine at frankly unconscionable prices; in the middle and at the bottom, an enormous ocean of perfectly pleasant wine at everyday prices. Well, in recent years that pyramid has both grown in size, and flattened out considerably.

There will always be a specialist market for expensive wines: the rich we will always have with us. As I’ve pointed out in my Examiner column before, the market for high-end wines costing hundreds or thousands per bottle – often sold en primeur - can only be understood if you perceive it as a millionaires’ auction.

But the really interesting stuff is happening at the middle and bottom of that pyramid.  In general, the  quality of regular, everyday wine has shot up, and the quantity of it has exploded in the last twenty years or so. You don’t need an economics degree to work out that prices ought to be tumbling across the board.

Which brings us to the second interesting point made, perhaps inadvertently, by Dan Jago, when he addressed the discounting issue  by minimising the effect of it:

“But it’s a mix,” he said. “Of the 850 wines in this store, you’ll probably find no more than 70 or 80 bottles on promotion at any one time. So it’s less than 10% of the range being promoted.”

That’s exactly the point I would quibble with. Instead of transparently, consistently lower prices, we are bedazzled by a roller-coaster of special offers and bogof (buy one get one free) deals.  I’m not suggesting traditional deals such as case discounts or bin-end sales are in some way problematic for the consumer. But I do believe consumers would be better served by straightforward transparent reduction across the board rather than the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t special offers, many of which aren’t that special at all. ♦

Your place or mine?

TWO wine events this week. Both are based in Cork, but while one is taking place in a restaurant, the other will happen in your front room. Or indeed anywhere in Ireland.

Villa Maria wine tasting dinner

WINE dinners. What’s that all about? Well, to them (winery, importer and restaurant) it’s a good promotional tool, and they’re very happy to subsidise the fun. To us (fun-seekers and wine fans) it can be an extraordinarily good value night out.  Case in point – the very affordable €55 tab for a five-course dinner accompanied by wines from New Zealand’s multi-award winning Villa Maria Estate at The Boardwalk Bar & Grill on Lapp’s Quay in Cork, tonight, Wednesday March 3.

I’m took a look at some smashing wines from the perpetually impressive Villa Maria in Saturday’s Irish Examiner. One of the things I love about the winery is the consistent quality they deliver at their lowest Private Bin level which retail for around €11.99.

Merlot Cabernet

I love the balance of their aromatics – riesling, gewürztraminer and pinot blanc – and how their fruity, floral character is counterweighted by dense luscious textures. The sauvignon blanc is a firm, citrussy classic. And Villa Maria also reflects New Zealand’s increasing confidence with merlot and cabernet and other red varietals outside the pinot noir box.

I’m not sure of the line-up of wines on the night but I suspect those attending tonight will also be tasting some from among higher Cellar Selection and Reserve tiers of the Villa Maria range. The evening begins at 7pm with a cocktail reception followed by dinner at 8pm, and Charlotte Read of Villa Maria will be introducing the wines to accompany each of the five courses.

Tickets are €55 per person and places are limited. Book by phone on 021 4279990, via email to   info@theboardwalkbarandgrill.com, and see The Boardwalk‘s site for further details.

[] The wines of Villa Maria are imported by Barry & Fitzwilliam, and stockists include: Waterford Ardkeen Stores;  Cork O’Driscolls, Ballinlough; Nationwide Carry Out Off-Licences;  Dunnes Stores; Super Valu; Centra and Superquinn. ♦

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Blind tasting via Twitter

THIS week’s second wine event (it’s on Sunday, but you better get your ass in gear now if you want to take part) is hallmarked by one giant novelty — it’s taking place via Twitter. Notwithstanding this mad and utterly fabulous YouTube video, an online tasting follows essentially the same course as any other, the big difference being that it takes place in the comfort of your own home.

Video showing how you can get wine delivered via your USB...

Despite being competitors, three wine firms based in Cork – Bubble Brothers, Curious Wines, and Karwig’s –  have a happy track record in co-operating on promotions, including the big wine show they co-hosted in Cork last Autumn. But they’ve also been running #twebt a series of Twitter-only blind wine tastings.

The third one takes place this – Sunday March 7 – at 9pm, and the bottle this time is supplied (carefully wrapped so you can’t see its identity) by Karwig Wines. Order it before noon today (Wednesday March 3) from www.karwigwines.ie and it’ll be delivered anywhere nationwide for €19. Or if you’re in the area, you can buy it at Karwig’s shop between Crosshaven and Carrigaline for €15 at any time up to next Saturday.

Sign up to Twitter and follow @Karwigwines and ask them any questions you may have; or search for “#twebt” where you will find links to websites and videos showing how the event works. ♦