Mary Dowey signs off after 10 years as Irish Times wine columnist, and chooses her 'bottle of the decade'
It's been a long six weeks. "We want you to write a new wine column. Try it for six weeks and see how you get on," the editor of the Weekend supplement suggested back in 1995. So much has happened in the meantime that in some ways it seems like a century ago. There was no Irish Times Magazine then; no Ely wine bar; no Irish outposts of Aldi, Lidl, Oddbins or Berry Bros; and precious little prosecco or rosé to cheer up the summer.
When the six weeks were up I rang our persuasive editor to hand in my notice. I felt I couldn't hack it. She talked me around. Now, 10 years and more than 500 columns later, the moment really has come to step down. It's time to escape the tyranny of weekly deadlines - the constant, frenzied hunt for Bottles of the Week and the lurch in the stomach, every Tuesday morning, at the prospect of having to fill a blank screen with another 1,200 thirst-inducing words. I suppose I have known since last Christmas that I would not find it in my soul to describe wines to go with turkey for the 11th year in a row.
Despite these occupational hazards, it has been a thrilling decade. I have visited virtually every worthwhile wine region in the world, seeing spectacular vineyards and meeting the best producers. Many of them are so passionate about what they do, so fascinating and so agreeable that I often felt I would like to pack them up in a box and bring them home with me (risking a certain amount of domestic outcry, perhaps). Wine is as much about remarkable people and places as it is about liquid in a glass.
There has been no better time to write about wine in Ireland. The market has more than trebled in volume, moving from 2.2 million cases in 1995 to more than seven million last year. Annual consumption reflects the same growth - from about six litres a head in 1995 to over 18 litres now. Wine has become an everyday pleasure instead of a special-occasion treat.
Along with market growth has come a huge upheaval in consumer preferences. Ten years ago, France completely dominated the Irish wine scene with a market share of 43 per cent. Italy came next with 13 per cent, then Australia with 11 per cent and Germany with seven per cent. How different from today. Australia is the leader with 23 per cent of the market, Chile has streaked into the number two position with 21 per cent and France has dwindled to almost a third of its previous strength at around 15 per cent - hotly pursued by both the US and South Africa with more than 10 per cent each. New Zealand and Argentina, of tiny significance a decade ago, have also fought their way into the top 10.
In other words, back in 1995, Europe accounted for more than 70 per cent of Irish wine sales, with the New World barely managing 30 per cent. Now those figures are reversed. For the moment at least (remember, wine is fashion-influenced and fashion is fickle), New World wines are on a roll.
Their success is often attributed to the simplicity of their approach - using one grape variety such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon and putting its name clearly on the label. This is undoubtedly part of the story. The fruity flavours which grapes tend to deliver when blessed with the more reliable sunshine of the New World do the rest.
But let's not forget that Irish wine lovers are reputed to be among the best educated in the world, with unusually high attendance at the wine appreciation classes which have spawned all over the country in the past decade. The impact of this filters right through the market, with new consumers sustaining the demand for single varietal wines while experienced drinkers strike out in more adventurous directions.
We have never had such an exotic and diverse array of wines on offer. Galicia, Bierzo and Cigales in northwest Spain, Puglia in Italy, Tupungato in Argentina and Central Otago in New Zealand are just a few of the up-and-coming regions putting fascinating flavours in your glass. Organic and biodynamic wines are no longer something suspect and smelly on health shop shelves, but mainstream. As for grapes, I don't remember seeing much Petit Verdot, Primitivo or old-vine Mourvèdre around 10 years ago, never mind Fiano, Godello or Picpoul.
All good news, but is this golden age drawing to a close? The world's biggest wine corporations are getting bigger - gobbling up smaller companies in order to pump out ever greater volumes of bland, branded plonk. In Ireland, as in the UK, the market has become cut-throat, driving down prices and quality at the same time. With the average spend on a bottle of wine dropping in spite of all that extra money we're supposed to have acquired in our pockets these past few years, retailers are racing to import new cheapies - not difficult, given that there is a global wine surplus. But most of this bottom-end stuff tastes dire. I have sampled far more shockers in the past two years than in the eight before.
Even so, I could fill five final columns with highlights from the pampered existence of a wine writer. A picnic in the Barossa Valley with Penfolds' chief winemaker, Peter Gago, and a bottle of 1981 Grange; a snoekbraai cooked under the stars by South Africa's Pinotage king, Beyers Truter; dinner at home in Beaune with Pierre-Henry Gagey of Maison Louis Jadot and his wife, with Burgundies going back to 1913, while dogs and children tumbled around in the background . . . these are some of the first memories to float to mind from a massive vat of wine-soaked recollections. New vineyards in the icy foothills of the Argentine Andes at dawn; old vineyards carpeted with red boulders glowing from the day's heat in Châteauneuf-du-Pape at sunset, and everything in between.
It wasn't all wonderful, of course: no point in seeing things through rosé-tinted glasses. Some wineries are as big and impersonal as an oil refinery, defined by little more than the speed of their high-tech bottling line and the confected, chemical-laden liquid squirting through. A good many wine fairs are soul-destroying, too - awash with mediocre wines in some venue with less atmosphere than an aircraft hangar. And there are ranks of ditzy PR people to plough through - many of them spectacularly clueless about the products they represent. In London, wine PR is a sophisticated science. In Dublin, with one or two exceptions, it still has a long, long way to go.
I won't miss them - nor, as I say, this column's weekly creativity crises. But I will miss you, my readers. Without the enthusiasm and encouragement of your frequent letters and e-mails, I would never have kept going for a year, let alone 10. And without interesting bottles regularly dispatched to The Irish Times from over 60 importing companies of all sizes and descriptions, it would have been impossible to keep unearthing winners.
Now, although it's time to move on from these pages, I won't be leaving wine behind. I'll have a glass in my hand every day of the week, I suspect, as I pursue new vinous challenges, continue to give courses and, with any luck, spend more time strolling through vineyards. I hope you will keep tippling, too.
Let's drink to a healthy future for the Irish market, with plenty of exciting new wines and majestic old ones to share with friends and remember with pleasure. Good wine is magic. Even half-decent wine enhances a dull day. Pay a few extra euro and you're in with a reasonable chance of finding a bottle with the power to change your life.