I first spotted this wine at a tasting during the summer. Boutique importers, Grape Circus, Simon Tyrell and Nomad Wines got together for a tasting in June and there were some brilliant tastings on show. Enrico from Grape Circus focused on Italians, Tyrell on the Rhone & South of France. Nomad focused on Burgundy and my pick of the bunch wasn’t a Meursault or Puligny but a humble Aligoté.

Surprise, delight, wonder. Wonder particularly around how this grape could become so maligned when it’s capable of such brilliance.

Delicious delicate floral aromas, a gorgeous rich minerality complimented by citrus zestiness. Keep your lemons peeled for this gorgeous Aligoté. Available from Vanilla Grape in Kenmare and (online from vgwines.com) and a few select independents.

The Aligoté by Lignier was pretty darn special too.

John McDonnell from Wine Australia is bringing over Tim Adams from Clare Valley for a three stop series of consumer tastings.

Where’s Clare Valley?

It’s a long way from Clare to here. Clare being a valley in South Australia and here being Galway, Ennis and Cork. Clare Valley, a couple of hours north of Adelaide, was named by Edward Gleeson who left Sixmilebridge in County Clare in 1850.

And who is Tim Adams?

Big Tim is a celebrated winemaker and he’ll be talking about his home in the Clare Valley, his neighbours and, of course, the wines from the area, which you’ll get to taste.

His wines are superbly made and widely available in Tesco (there’s something for everyone, too. The whites include Riesling, Semillon, and Pinot Gris. The reds,  Shiraz/Cabernet, Shiraz, The Fergus – a GSM blend – all gorgeous).

It won’t just be his own open for tasting, there will be a few from some of his wine-making neighbours

When, where, for whom and for how much?

That’s a lot of questions, but here it goes…

1. Tuesday, 7th September, 6.45pm Blackrock Castle, Cork
2. Wednesday, 8th September, 6.45pm Glór, Ennis, Co. Clare
3. Thursday, 9th September, Cafe 8 Galway City Museum

It’s for everyone, consumers, non-consumers, men, women and beast

It’s only €20 – great opportunity to get up close and personal with one of the greats in Australian winemaking.

To book: Phone Wine Australia in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare on (065) 707 7264 or email ireland@wineaustralia.com

I’ll be heading to the Galway gig for a formal handover of the Tag Rugby cup to the team franchise owner, Tim. I’ve put a bit of a speech together, so I hope you can make it.

Food is where wine fits. so this is worth a watch.

I set up wineireland.com on June 26th, having sat on the domain name for a while.

My aim for the site

My aim for the site is to bring more traffic to the great and the good of the Irish online wine scene, whether commentators, critics or retailers.

How it works

RSS: Real simple syndication

I pick up the RSS feeds of the wine blogs in Ireland and publish a snippet or teaser for each one. This is all done automagically.

Feeding the Tweetie bird

Via my @smallsips account on twitter and an excellent tool called TwitterFeed, I pick up any posts and a tweet goes out in the following format. It’s also automagic.

I stuck with the smallsips account as I already had a bit of “brand equity” and it would be a lot easier than starting another twitter account.

How it works for you

The more you post, the greater the footprint you have – a trail leading to your site. This may or may not help your SEO (search engine optimisation) efforts. If it does, great.

Ultimately, I hope it brings you web traffic, readers, customers and good karma. If it is bringing you any of these, I’d be delighted to know.

The Twelve Hotel in Galway has recently picked up their third award in a row from Wine Spectator’s annual restaurant awards.

The press release reads

West Restaurant at The Twelve Hotel in Bearna has won Ireland’s only 2010 Award of Excellence, designed to recognise restaurants whose wine lists offer interesting selections, are appropriate to their cuisine and appeal to a wide range of wine lovers, from one of the world’s foremost and best-respected authorities on wine, Wine Spectator magazine.

Detractors may ask if they are “Ireland’s only winner”, then who else entered? . So, L’Ecrivan, Thornton’s or Guibauld’s may not have entered (let alone other Irish restaurants with fantastic wine lists). Valid question and one I emailed to Wine Spectator, but I’ve yet to receive a response.

Perhaps the awards are more like an independent audit i.e. validation that you’re doing the right things with your wine list. When you win, you can deservedly leverage all this hard work as marketing material.

In either case, the wine list looks very impressive. Cheers to the West restaurant in Bearna’s Twelve Hotel.

Wine is sold, described, criticised and presented is changing for ever. The surprising thing is that many of the people who work in and around wine haven’t noticed or are in denial about the power and scope of the revolution.

Then, looking towards the punter, Tim goes onto say,

“One of the most remarkable things about the internet, typified by Wikipedia but apparent everywhere, is that people are happy to share their opinions for nothing. Some of these opinions are worth more than others, but they are freely and often rapidly expressed. If you want feedback on a new wine, label, brand or concept, what better way to get it? Using new communications tools, punters readily exchange views, news and tasting tips on a worldwide scale.

Latent demand and harnessing the power of social media

On one side we’ve got what looks to be a pretty conservative industry, but on the other a very progressive, clear demand for engagement (not just the fermented grape juice). So, how can the former exploit this latent demand?

The shelf-talker of the future?

A “shelf-talker” is often a the tasting note and/or opinion given by an established wine writer in his publication which is then reprinted or re-purposed by the retailer.

Having seen just one aspect of what’s possible with adegga.com and their barcode-based dynamic wine labels, I took to glimpsing into the future of what the shelf talker could be, using the “wisdom of the crowd” and the power of reviews “from people like me”.

By aggregating reviews, there is an added veracity to the endorsement of the wine. Amazon is the poster child of the power of reviews, but what say you, could this work?

Part two of my Lorgeril trip in June was a drive from Carcassonne through to Béziers and to Château de Ciffre (see part one in Cabardès).

The Ciffre estate straddles the border between the Faugères and St. Chinian and there’s an obvious difference in the soil which you can see immediately.

In this video Lorgeril’s Frank Flugge discusses the difference between the two appellations.

Faugères has a darker, schnist and gneiss soil – volcanic and a lot older than the clay-limestone of St. Chinian. There’s a difference in the glass too.

You can stay on the grounds of the estate in converted windmill which comfortably sleeps 12.

Wines from the estate are available from Mitchell and Son.

Video from a trip in June to Carcassone and one of Lorgeril‘s properties, Château Pennautier.

Lorgeril wines

A number of Lorgeril wines are available from Mitchell & Son and their Château de Pennautier is available from Dunnes.

This, of course, relates to the sweetness levels of the wines made in Tokaji. It could also something about the weight or number of baskets at harvest. This, I’m afraid, sums up my fleeting knowledge of Hungarian wines for the most part. All of which is a bid of crime against Hungarian cuisine as I’m a mere stones throw from an Hungarian food and wine shop. Perhaps if they sent me some sample I’d have more of a reason to learn about them. Otherwise, it’s back to charming bright red white zinfandels and some €5 wine from Aldi. Ah, well.

Irony aside, I have actually tried more than just the sweet wine of Tokaji and you probably should too. The dry whites and the red “Bull’s Blood” are worth seeking out. The wine for this week is a dry Tokaji.

Dry Tokaji

O’Brien’s do one, Enowine another. And then there’s this one, the Chateau Dereszla Dry Tokaji 2007 brought in and sold by Mitchell & Son and “wine of the week” for this week.

The grapes are picked quite a bit earlier than those which go into the sweet wine, so there’s less sugar to be furminted, sorry fermented, and you end up with a dry wine. The grapes in this one are the punderful Furmint, the unpronounceable Harslevelu and the too oft maligned and misunderstood Muscat.

How does it taste?

Nose of apricots, intense acidity, flavours of bitter orange and apricots with a vein of minerality coursing through it. Long finish. Wonderful.
Available from Mitchell & Son and select independents for €13.50

Cellar Master is a wine warehouse, following a similar business model to Majestic in the UK,  Dan Murphy’s in Australia and Sam’s Wine Warehouse in Chicago

Cellarmaster

18 Maple Avenue
Stillorgan Industrial Park
County Dublin
Tel: 012176508
Online: www.cellarmaster.ie

* there are a few more Irish Masters of Wine who ply their trade outside Ireland, but for some reason aren’t listed under Ireland on mastersofwine.org