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. ♦

Making wine in Ireland

Stonewell Cider

I’M tacking a few paragraphs about Stonewell Cider on to a version of an earlier post for reasons that I hope will become clear. Sadly, Michael O’Callaghan, who is mentioned in the earlier post, has since died. I’ve left my comments about him unedited and in the present tense. May he rest in peace.

[July 2 2011] I’ve recently had the great pleasure of tasting Stonewell Medium Dry Irish Craft Cider 2010, the first release of Nohoval Brewing Company, which is named for its location near Kinsale in south Co Cork. Made with “regionally sourced” Dabinett, Michelin and Cox apples, it’s a crisp and fragrant medium dry cider. It’s a great beginning — although personally I’d prefer a drier style. I got mine among the great collection of British and Irish beers and ciders at Bradley’s Off-Licence on North Main Street in Cork. You can find it there or among the updated list of stockists at the Stonewell Cider website.  It’s featured in today’s Irish Examiner, along with a number of wines distributed by Wine Alliance.

As with wine, it’s interesting to see how a tipple fares alongside its peers, and I’d encourage anyone interested to do so. In this case I enjoyed the Stonewell in a taste-off against a number of others — Bulmers original cider (bottle, not draught), and two vintage ciders sold by M&S from Herefordshire and Somerset.

Although the advent of Stonewell – the first of its type in the republic – is the most welcome news from the drinks industry in years, I believe the rest of this post  still rings true. See what you think, and please share your thoughts. Okay. That’s the end of the update. Here’s the original post…

[January 11, 2010] WE WINE lovers tend to be pretty enthusiastic about the subject. If there’s one recurring motif that sums up our irrepressible optimism, and our affection for the ancient craft of winemaking, it’s got to be the frequently-heard question “so, is it possible to grow grapes and make wine in Ireland?”

The short answer is “yes”. The longer answer is a tortuously qualified yes (well summarised in this interesting and fun debate going on over at The Evening Hérault). But the best answer of all is another question — Why would you bother? Or to put it another way, what would Michael O’Callaghan do?

I first encountered Michael O’Callaghan at London Wine Fair a few years ago when the couple who run the stellar Staete Landt winery in Marlborough, New Zealand, named him as their Irish distributor. He was hand-selling their wines in small quantities to restaurants back then, more-or-less as an interim measure while they sought out a fully-fledged distributor. And, it also turned out, he was developing a vineyard at Longueville House near Mallow, Co Cork. Along with a handful of other pioneers in Cork, Waterford and north Co Dublin, he was defying our Atlantic climate to make wine.  The Vitis vinifera vine generally favour a continental hot-and-cold climate rather than the mousey damp mildness that prevails here. But O’Callaghan et al had determined to grow them here, and so they did.

Fast-forward to the end of the last decade to the really interesting bit, because what Michael O’Callaghan did next should provide inspiration to any green-fingered Irish wine lover — he rooted up all his vines and replaced them with apple trees. Even though he’s clearly not short of teaspaí, and had been been sufficiently inspired to live the fantasy life of Irish winemaker, he threw his hat at it and opted instead for a native species of fruit more suited to our climate.

Apples to eat, apple juice to drink — and there is a steadily growing band of good locally-made apple juices on the shelves of good grocers and at farmers markets. There’s also the prospect of a good cider, which can go beautifully with dishes such as roast pork. And of course the whole apples/juice/cider thing fits in perfectly with the local-and-in-season aspiration which has all but supplanted organics as the foodies’ touchstone.

Displaying his typical indefatigable industry, Michael O’Callaghan now distils, and has recently launched, an apple brandy in the style of Calvados. Better again, it was awarded a bronze medal in its category on its first outing at the International Wine And Spirit Competition. (However, the contact details on the IWSC site are incorrect. Eden Apple Brandy is available directly from Michael O’Callaghan on 00 353 22 27643. There are no plans to distribute it more widely.)

Seedsavers is still building its library of native British and Irish plants - including many vaireties of apples.

You don’t have to go as far as Michael O’Callaghan has, but I point him out as an example to anyone expressing an interest in growing wine in Ireland. If you love the infinite variety of flavours and aromas of wine; if you appreciate how wine puts you in touch with ancient food and drink traditions; if you ‘get’ the whole thing about wine and its heritage and history — plant an apple tree.

Get a few neighbours together to grow a tree each to ensure all are cross-pollinated. Better again, gather like-minded people together to turn a whole neighbourhood or town into a virtual orchard. (Green activists in Bandon, Co Cork, did precisely this during 2009. At the time of writing I haven’t been able to contact any of them for a progress update. When I can, I’ll update this post with details. If you’re involved or know more than I do, please email me).

Talk to your local nursery or garden centre. Or better still, get in touch with Seed Savers (00 353 61 921866. www.irishseedsavers.ie) and get a sapling from their growing library of traditional native Irish and British apples such as the Cavan Newington or Ballinora Pippin.

I’m not alone in getting misty-eyed over a delicious glass of wine. I love the stuff. I also love the accompanying local traditions. Bourgogne. Vacqueyras. Penedès. But think about it. A legion of wine fans is intimate with many, many grape varieties, and with their provenance, their terroir. So why in the name of Auntie Nora aren’t we similarly fluent in, for instance, Irish apples and their terroirs?

Check out The Apple Farm website here.

As I write, I’m crunching the second of two apples grown by Con Traas in Co Tipperary. They’re Elstars, delicately sweet and crunchy with a pleasant touch of earthiness. But I have to admit I’m relatively ignorant of the apple varieties native to these shores. I think the disparity of our knowledge of and attitudes toward grapes and apples begs many questions of our attitude to food and drink. And so fundamental are food and drink to who we are that I wonder if it says something about us. ♦

————————————————————————————————————————————

STOP THE PRESS!*

Since posting this I see one of the main players mentioned in it is taking part in a very interesting event in Cork this Thursday. Here are the details.

GROW YOUR OWN FRUIT
Con Traas (The Apple Farm, Cahir, 2009 Eurotoque Food Award Winner) &
John Howard (Sunnyside Fruit Farm, Rathcormac)
present an evening of inspiration advice and guidance on how to grow strawberries,  apples, plums blackcurrents, raspberries etc.

Crawford Gallery Café, Emmet Place on Thursday January 28 at 7.30pm.

€6 including tea & coffee.

* old media meme. Ask your grandparents.

#rtefl

The carbon dioxide of publicity

FINE DROP: Mumm’s the word at the Melbourne F1 GP in 2007. Picture: Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images

I MUST have a proper look around again because I’m sure I tucked it away somewhere a few years ago. If I find it, I’ll pop scans up here. The brochure advertising Champagne Mumm Cordon Rouge was pretty typical of material designed to convey a feeling of luxury. Expensively printed on heavy paper, it was all big glossy feelgood pictures interspersed with a few paragraphs boosting that brand by means of a sepia company history and some claims for the quality of the product.

Grand. We get it.

But as I thumbed through it, the brochure took a strange turn. Having started out appealing directly to our aspirations, it wandered off into another dimension with examples of its high-profile advertising and sponsorship.

Toto tugs back the curtain revealing the Wizard of Oz as no more than some bloke pulling levers. Attaboy Toto.

In essence, these later pages are saying, “hey look! We’re spending lots of money on things that people like which are expensive like, uh, Formula 1 and hot air ballooning. And after we’ve burned that barrow load of money, we spend more of it on product placement in movies. These are ways we forge aspirational associations with our product which, hopefully, will cause people to buy it!”

Ulp. This is a bit like that moment when Toto tugs back the curtain¹ to reveal the fearsome Wizard Of Oz as just this guy pulling levers. Except that in the Champagne brochure it’s the wizard himself who’s showing us the strings, the smoke and mirrors.

LET US SPRAY: Old-skool podium moment from 2002. Picture: AP Photo/Jan Pitman

Many wine fans have long despaired of the F1 tradition of the winners spraying bubbly over each other. Waste of good drink. But this apparently gormless bit of fun has a purpose. The podium finish cork-popping moment (like the pic of Barrichello and Schumacher conducting a tasting for Jean Todt, left) is pure genius: images of a celebratory moment that necessarily put the product centre-stage. Clever and all as it is, the publicity opportunity has been further refined in recent years. There’s nothing random about the way the label is prominently displayed face forward, and how nowadays the brand name is pasted on the bottle upside down to cope with all possible camera angles. Neat.

POP STAR: Alonso’s bottle-drop. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty Images

But the shake-and-spray routine does have its limitations. How closely do you examiner Yorick’s skull in Hamlet or the ball in a match? There’s a growing trend to issue photographs of the product in all its glory with much of the distracting background noise (such as drivers and cars) removed or reduced. This is the bottle drop, when one of the winning F1 team drops a bottle of pop from the podium to his team mates and pit crew below. The example at the top of this page shows Ferrari team principal Jean Todt dropping a bottle to his team in 2007. On the right we see Fernando Alonso doing the same thing at the Nurburgring in 2005. It isolates and energises the package shot we’re meant to be looking at.

Intentional or otherwise, the symbolism is hilarious, suggesting we ordinary people down here can share in this fabulousness. Yay!  And the explicit benefit to the Champagne producer is that the focus is guaranteed to be on their product, with none of the embarrassing ostentation of a Serena Williams press conference. .

The advertising that dare not speak its name

The company’s intentions with the F1 sponsorship is hardly a surprise. Everyone knows those logos don’t appear on the cars’ chassis without reason. It’s advertising. Been around forever. But seeing Mumm spell out examples of movie product placement in glossy A4 layouts is frankly a bit weird, and there are the stills to prove it: Kodak moments, each with GH Mumm’s fizzy alcohol displayed prominently. A Beautiful Mind… Pearl Harbor… The English Patient… Casablanca… Casablanca?

Hang on a minute, the discovery that there may have been product placement in Casablanca is like seeing the Mona Lisa munching on a Snickers. Well, the brochure doesn’t explicitly state that airtime in Michael Curtiz’s classic was bought in cash or kind, but the familiar label with the diagonal stripe certainly does appears all over that drink-sodden movie. And Mumm reproduce a still in the brochure. Just like Fight Club, the first rule of product placement is that there is no product placement. The intention is that we notice the product — but not notice that’s it’s been placed in your favourite movie or TV show to attract your cash. Which is why I got such a queasy feeling seeing the process explicitly laid out in that brochure.

Mumm – without the cars or stars

I’m not singling out Mumm. They have singled themselves out through this focus on matters that have no connection with the integral qualities of their product. Mumm  is merely one of the Champagne marques, all of which in their various ways engage in similar promotional activity to big up their CO2-impregnated gat. And don’t forget individual companies’ stars’n’cars activity is only one half of Champagne’s success story.

The other half is the exemplary co-opetition (co-operation among competitors) displayed by all the big Champagne producers who joined up to campaign for special recognition of its name in international trade agreements before anyone else thought of such measures. (At some stage in the future I must take a look here at that phenomenon, including examples of the lawsuits taken by France’s finest against other products that dared to use the C-word.)

So I don’t like Champagne then? No, I love it. And, as it happens, at this week’s Irish Wine Show, which showcased a range of wines promoted by independent off-licences in Ireland, I rated Mumm as the best of its peers. But there’s a problem. All. Champagne. Is. Too. Dear. That region of France has nurtured a fantastic wine tradition. A trio of classic grapes – chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier — are grown in a relatively cool climate, made into wine and then fermented a second time in bottle, giving it the other two keynotes of its character — that gorgeous warm feeling and of course the bubbles. There’s quite a range of styles within the Champagne canon, whites and rosés at varying degrees of dryness. While not all styles will appeal to all people (my experience, backed up by subsequent evidence, is that most wine fans find simpler uncluttered Champagnes more approachable than the bready, yeasty styles more common in vintage models) it is a cracking way to drink wine. But the Champagne region shares much of that traditionwith other parts of France and with other parts of Europe. Plus now we’ve been discovering that new startups can replicate the, um, tradition.  Every year there are more and more excellent sparkling wines coming on the market, principally from Australia and New Zealand but also from Spain, Italy, Chile, Hungary and elsewhere. I had a glimpse of this recently at the Fizz & Stickies Show. And just a fortnight ago I tasted a very attractive bubbly made in the same way as Champagne, and from the same grapes — in Brazil. We think Champagne is synonymous with good sparkling wine. It ain’t. It’s been commanding higher prices than its equals from elsewhere due not to any of its unquestioned integral qualities, but to the carbon dioxide of publicity. ♦

F O O T N O T E

¹ Toto’s unveiling of the Wizard is no mere flash in the pan. There’s a widely-held misconception that Dorothy is the central character in The Wizard Of Oz whereas in fact she plays a supporting role to the film’s true focus, the small dog who drives the action throughout the movie. Seriously. Watch it again and you’ll see.

Fun(d)raising wine tasting

Most of the glasses were M&S Windsor Large Red Wine Glasses, €20 for four.

THURSDAY’S fundraiser at the Sexual Violence Centre (see below) was a social event rather than a straight tasting. The mood was even more convivial than I’d expected. So I merrily abandoned some of the planned stuff, including a few fun wine-tasting exercises and pretty much all of the editorialising. It’s best to go with the flow – but I did briefly interrupt the lovely chatty ambience by bellowing brief  telegrams on the identity and provenance of each wine.

The people gathered for the do were great fun, both newcomers to the gaff and the centre’s own people – Mary, Dola, Humaira and other staff, volunteers and friends. It’s always a good feeling to be one of many, all of us coming together to support and even celebrate the work of the Sexual Violence Centre. Some couldn’t be there that night unfortunately but we did raise a glass to them – photographer Clare Keogh (whose work I’m going to be returning to here again at a later date) and, for the gorgeous food they provided, Bridget Healy and Vourneen Fayer.  The Olive Stall in the English Market plus one other supplier also contributed. I’ll name the latter here when I can do so.

We were particularly well looked after by the seamless no-hassle work of the pouring crew – Jacinta O’Shea, Marie-Claire Kah, Linda Barrett, Erica Seffastsson, Andrew Lane and Ray Boland.

Oh yes, there were wines too 🙂 I picked out what I think are good (and good value) examples of some important points along the wine spectrum, all available to buy in and around Cork city.

All of the wine was donated by its importer/distributor as detailed below.  I put together a wish-list and wrote to each of them asking for that specific wine. With humbling generosity, each of them immediately said “great cause, yes”. Here’s a roundup of the wines, their importers, and where to buy them. It’s traditional to say please support our sponsors. In this case, going by the responses of the gathering, you might be doing yourself a favour by doing so.

Michel Lynch

Michel Lynch Bordeaux Blanc 2007 (€15)

Imported by Barry & Fitzwilliam www.bandf.ie.
Widely available at off-licences, supermarkets and wine shops.

Bordeaux blanc of substantial weight but sizzling with lemony acidity.

B&F’s inspirational story started in the depths of the last recession when a few executives in Murphy’s Brewery – on the verge of collapse at the time – left to form a wine importing company.  I’m sure the 1980s was a scary time to start trading. The big industrial employers in Cork, Ford and Dunlop had shut down. A leap of faith then, but hindsight tells us B&F caught the wine wave early on. Between organic growth and acquisitions they’ve grown into the biggest indigenously-owned wine importer. Their portfolio includes dozens of commendable ranges, my particular favourites including Brown Brothers and Tyrrell’s from Australia; MontGras (Chile), and Boschendal (South Africa).

Bluff Hill

Bluff hill Sparkling Rosé NV (€10.99)

Marks & Spencer

Strawberries and cream in a glass in a champenoise chardonnay pinot noir bubbly from New Zealand.

M&S effectively make their own wine. Their wine-buying team led by Chris Murphy is enriched by winemakers such as Gerd Stepp who commission a range running the gamut from cheap and cheerful to fine specialities. Famous names making wine for them include (to pick just three heroes of mine) Alvaro Espinoza in Chile, Clairault in Western Australia and Dr Loosen in Germany. The result, apart from some fantastic value is a surprisingly comprehensive and up-to-date wine shop.

Tagus Creek

Tagus Creek Chardonnay Ferñao Pires (€10 to €11)

Imported by Classic Drinks. Available at Next Door off-licences; Brian Barry’s Midleton; Matsons, Bandon; Village Greengrocer, Castlemartyr; River Lane Cafe, Ballineen; Pinecroft off-licence, Grange.

EVEN leaving port aside, the reds and whites made from Portugal’s indigenous grapes consistently overdeliver on price / quality. But the country is having to innovate, if only to attract our attention  with more readily recognisable wines, styles, grapes and packaging. The new wave includes everything from fab douro rosé (from port grapes) to things like this smashing classic/native blend from the Ribatejo region.  Named and packaged in that Australian way, it’s a beautifully nuanced soft-structured and gently tropical white.

One of the relative newcomers in the wine trade, Classic’s line-up includes Seifried Estate  (New Zealand) O’Shea & Murphy (Australia) Torreon de Paredes (Chile) Ferngrove Estate (Western Australia) and Bodegas Muriel (Spain).

Bushland Estate

Bushland Reserve Chardonnay  (€6.49)

Aldi

Big, oaked chardonnay isn’t to everyone’s taste but I
think there is a place in the repertoire for the likes of
this one made by Michael Hope at, well,  Hope Estate in
Australia – an arpeggio up the keyboard from cool
citrus to rich tropical buttery notes.

Pikes

Pikes Red Mullet Shiraz Grenache Mourvedre Tempranillo €14.67

Imported by James Nicholson Wines www.jnwine.com.
Also available in a handful of stockists including (Cork) Abbot Ale House, Devonshire Street North; Parson’s Wines, Carrigaline; (Donegal) McGrory’s, Culdaff; (Dublin) Sweeny’s Wine Merchant; (Galway) Harvest off-licence; (Waterford) Fahy’s; Worldwide Wine.

I am a great fan of Pikes, who make top-class wines  including of course riesling, in the Clare Valley.
A handful of their reds play delightfully with Spanish and Italian styles that are as yet relatively unexploited  in the new world. Here, the addition of aromatic tempranillo to a soft gluggable rhone blend adds a gorgeous toffeish note. In general I like my reds served quite cool and this is one that would benefit from a slight touch of chill. Unlike Thursday when I thought it was a bit too warm.  But nevertheless it was gorgeous. Arguably the joker in the pack because of the mash-up of styles, it proved to be pretty much the popular hit of the evening.

Nicholsons, based in Co Down, is the only wine retailing site I know of that can seamlessly take orders from either the republic or UK and deliver to either jurisdiction, if you know what it mean. (I found it handy when picking out a gift case for a colleague in Britain last year). More importantly they have a superb list. I find myself at their portfolio tastings desperately trying to find the duds. If you are buying online, make sure you select the correct  location/currency on the website as of course different excise duty rates apply in the Republic and Northern Ireland.

De Martino

De Martino Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2007 €14

Imported by Febvre – www.febvre.ie.
Stockists include Bradley’s North Main Street, and a version of it is sold by the glass in The Pavilion bar on Cary’s Lane.

Maipo Valley Chile. Made with organically-grown grapes.
I adore this. While I love lots of ‘obvious’ wines – those fruity numbers that parade their charms up-front – there’s a special place in my heart for wines like this: a dignified and elegant cabernet blend that slowly and coolly unpacks a perfectly-packed box of leafy currants.

Febvre’s list is a fantastic blend of posh and approachable. They’re also innovators. They were the first to introduce quarter bottles and also spearheaded screwcaps. Plus they’re adding another interesting dimension which I’ll return to here soon.

Clos Malverne

Clos Malverne Pinotage Reserve Stellenbosch 2007 (€13.95)

Dunnes Stores

You’ll rarely hear anyone suggest “it’s a special occasion – let’s trade up to something from South Africa”. But one destination for posh reds you might consider is Clos Malverne in Stellenbosch. And long before you reach the heady heights of their flagship Auret, their range includes some excellent affordable reds that behave like posh premium wines.
When the pinotage grape doesn’t work properly it can have an unpleasant green medicinal edge. But here, perhaps due to a combination of factors (primarily, I guess, old vines in relatively cool vineyards) there is something marvellously supple and seductive about a wine that is so layered and complex. Mature and open, this was the red in the tasting that least needed airing or decanting.  (One of my abandoned fancies was to hold back one of each red intending to open them just before pouring and thereby illustrate the benefit of breathing.)

As supermarkets and symbol groups go, Dunnes stand out from the crowd. Jacinta Delahaye and Richard Ecock head the wine buying team who source top-class  exclusives including  Laurent Miquel, Vignerons de Chusclan, Inycon, Nieto Senetiner  and a whole range of Bordeaux reds.

Glass action

Finally, quite a few people were asking about the pretty good wine glasses we were using. My, ahem, ‘collection’ of glasses is quite a mixture at this stage but most of them are the M&S Windsor Large Red Wine Glass, €20 for a pack of four. The even more impressive Bordeaux glasses in the same range are also only twenty bucks. I don’t know why anyone would pay any more than that. Glasses break, for pity’s sake. So why would you have anything in the house you’d be fretting over?

Wine tasting evening, June 25

It’s wine o’clock!

I’M running a fun wine-tasting evening with the Sexual Violence Centre, Cork on Thursday June 25.  We’ll be sipping from a long list of wines that I think will light yer candle – accompanied by some top-class tasty treats courtesy of Bridget Healy and Vourneen Fayer. Yay!

For years, Mary Crilly and myself have been promising ourselves we’d do a tasting in (and for) the Sexual Violence Centre, so I’m thrilled skinny that it’s finally happening. You may be interested yourself. And/or if you know anyone who might be, please pass on a link to this page.

It’s all taking place in the airy first-floor rooms of the Centre’s home – a beautiful 18th century townhouse on Camden Place, the terrace of red-brick houses on Camden Quay just off St Patrick’s Bridge in Cork. By the way, the satirist and mischief-making rascal Sylvester Mahony (aka Fr Prout) was born on the same terrace in 1804 but I’m not sure which house. Anyway, this is a rare opportunity to see this lovely building from the inside, which is another bonus.

Where the wines come from...

The words “wine tasting” have many, many meanings so I’ll outline roughly what this one is all about. Everyone will be seated around tables (or, for the lucky few who get there early, sprawled on the cosy couches) and I’ll introduce six or eight reds, whites and rosés as well as some cool bubbles  —  the ones that don’t have the word ‘property’ in front of them.

I will be talking a bit about each wine while trying to avoid telling people what to think. I’ll also be chatting around some themes that can help us choose wines that are both good and good value.  (Plus, if it doesn’t complicate things too much, I might be getting people to engage in a fun and practical exercise designed to help us reassert the pre-eminence of our senses over the say-so of critics and commentators like myself).

It’ll most closely resemble a sociable few drinks (albeit with one guy holding forth a bit. That’d be me).  At the same time, it may be a useful exercise in reasserting some key guidelines when you are out buying wine. There’ll be printouts available at the end of the night detailing all the wines and where to get them, so people don’t have to be fussed getting the details at the time. Plus I’ll do a follow-up here online with references to any information that people are interested in. Which means we can all relax and enjoy the night.

…and where we can buy them

I can’t stand the undue reverence that is often paid to wine, and do everything I can to demolish that. But we will be drinking good tack on the night. And the wines will be shown off at their best as we’ll be serving them in great big Bordeaux-style glasses rather than  those wretched ISO egg-cup-sized yokes. Life’s too short.

The event is taking place to raise funds for, and awareness of, the Sexual Violence Centre which for 26 years has been providing support for survivors of sexual violence. It also offers outreach such as its schools education programmes, and is an active participant in the anti-trafficking campaign. Apart from the funds raised by the evening, just by gathering in that building I think we’ll all be offering our unspoken support for the people who provide these vital services.

Wine Tasting Evening with Blake Creedon
Thursday June 25,  (start time 7.30pm or 8pm – TBC)
Sexual Violence Centre, Camden Quay, Cork.
Tickets (€25) from 021 4505577 or from http://www.sexualviolence.ie.

For years, Mary Crilly and myself have been promising ourselves we’d do one, so I’m thrilled skinny that it’s finally happening. You may be interested yourself. And/or if you know anyone who might, please pass on a link to this page.

Fun with fermented grape juice…

LIKE my column in The Irish Examiner every Saturday, this blog is celebration of the sensuous pleasure and sheer fun you can have enjoying wine in good company. I also put posts up debunking some of the nonsense that surrounds wine. I will also be putting up posts on a wide range of topics that interest me.   ♦