Wine World
Wines have personality too!
Mairead Robinson suggests seeking out some exceptional wine instead of the usual.
There is a huge variety of wine available to the consumer in Ireland these days, and there is also quite a price war especially in the supermarkets. It is incredible that you can buy a bottle for as little as five euro, when the tax on each bottle amounts to more than that. While there are often bargains to be found, honestly when the price is rock bottom, the quality is usually that also. The bulk of the cheaper wines are mass produced using cost saving methods and often large amounts of sulphites to save on time and money. The headache you might endure the morning after a bottle of one of these wines will tell you all you need to know! So life is too short to drink really bad wine, something that we all realise as we get older, but there are certainly bargains out there if you keep an eye out. But certainly more important than just the price, is the personality, the character, the individual expression of a really good wine. It is also so rewarding to get to know the story behind the wines that you enjoy, and certainly as a wine writer I have had the great pleasure of visiting many wineries around the world and meeting the winemakers behind the labels. And so I was fascinated recently to hear about an Irish company importing really interesting wines from small producers and making them available to buy on-line at very reasonable prices. Wines With Stories was founded ten years ago by Sherril and Thomas Soliman who met, married and lived for some years in Venice where they enjoyed excellent quality artisan wines from small producers who often found it difficult to find a market for their wines outside of Italy. On returning to Belfast and seeing what they experienced as the inferior quality and high price of Italian wines here, they began to import wines not only from Italy, but as the business grew, they included wines from small. Sheril explains: ‘The idea behind Wines With Stories is that authentic, artisan wines with
provenance always have stories, whereas commercial wines, produced on an industrial scale never do. It’s a great filter when selecting wine from a restaurant menu or at a wine store. Ask what the story is behind the wine. If there isn’t one, then don’t risk buying a commercial wine that is generally propped up with high levels of sulphites and other chemicals to cover bad wine making. Commercial wines are often produced with seductive looking bottles and confected brand names, rather than an
58 Senior Times l July - August 2021 l www.seniortimes.ie
authentic winery name. Usually they have created a brand, hired a massive bottling plant and bought in bulk wine to put in the millions of bottles they then produce to flood the export markets. The UK and Ireland in particular are awash with commercial wines, due to the high rates of excise duty in both markets putting pressure on pricing’.
