Do you play safe when buying wine? Do you go to a well-known supermarket
– a Dunnes or a Tesco and buy a big brand – a Moet & Chandon or a
Rosemount say? Well there’s nothing wrong with that but why not head off
the beaten track? Martin will discuss the merits of buying a wine you
never heard from one of the little guys of the retail world on the Dublin
Life show on News Talk 106FM today (7/4/04) after the 3pm news.
It’s
becoming increasingly common for us to buy our wines in supermarkets and
mindlessly cruise the shelves and throw in a big brand wine or supermarket
own label and while you’re unlikely to be disappointed you might just
die of boredom along the way.
Take Champagne for instance - Moet & Chandon is the world’s biggest
selling Champagne brand and, given the volume produced, they don’t do a
bad job of turning out a reasonably consistent drinkable product and they
do a very good job on the advertising and marketing.
But why not try something different if you’re in the market for a bottle
of fizz? Why not try something produced on a more manageable scale –
something that can be overseen by one or two people rather than an army? A
family produced wine that’s the product of passion rather than of a
factory? A corner bistro rather than a multi national fast food outlet if
you like?
There
are many high quality small Champagne producers but in Ireland we rarely
get to hear of them, which is a crying shame. Bubble Brothers in Cork
founded their business on grower’s Champagne and this week in Dublin,
Papillon wines launched Comte Audoin de Dampierre
Champagne. Well of course none of us have heard of it and the
name’s hardly catchy, but I was quite taken with their Grand
Cuvée, 87/100 about €34.50 (available Corkscrew Wines, Vaughan Johnson
and Claudios), which will tasted on the show. It has that
delicious biscuity flavour that good Champagne has and some attractive
cherry fruit.
It’s
not the sort of fizz that you’ll find in a supermarket but rather in one
of Ireland’s growing number of owner run specialist wine shops. A couple
of new ones have opened recently in Dublin. Newest is Corkscrew on Chatham
St, off Grafton St, next door to the fish shop there. It’s run by Colm
Douglas and Paul Foley, son of Peter Foley. Those names may be familiar to
wine shoppers in that area as Peter was until recently the Irish face of
Berry Brothers and Rudd, a stone’s throw away and Douglas worked there
too. They’ve only been open since March 25th but my initial
impressions were good with an eclectic range of wines from around the
world with prices starting at €6.95 and you can certainly be sure of
good advice. They’ll help you find something a little different.
Another
shop that should by now have opened is at 127 Upper Leeson St run by
Nathalie Greve, formally a sommelier at Chapter One and The Commons, which
will sell French wines from small producers. I haven’t seen it yet but
Nathalie said a few weeks ago that they were about to open.
Other
wine specialists who have opened in the last two or three years worthy of
your attention include the Wicklow wine company in Wicklow Town,
Caprani’s in Ashford Co. Wicklow; Red Island wines in Skerries; The
French Paradox in Ballsbridge and The Grape Escape in Lucan. Not of course
that you should ignore the many well established wine sellers who happen
also to sell spirits and beer too who have also improved their wine
offerings in recent times.
Discovery
is part of the fun of wine so take my advice and take a trip off the
beaten path.
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