Suaver Soave

Visitors to Ireland, particularly those who have travelled via the United Kingdom, frequently express favourable opinions of the quality of our wine emporia, praise often coupled with positive remarks about the knowledge of their staff. Maybe the latter is not so surprising. After all, we are an education conscious country – as a friend, a mother of five remarked “Why shouldn’t we be? Education costs an arm and a leg here, that’s why we value it so much!” Domestic economics apart, there’s no doubt that the Irish are inquisitive by nature and maybe it’s this healthy curiosity that has led to a positive plethora of wine courses, both for trade and public. It’s said that more people are taking wine classes in Ireland than in the whole of Britain, a statistic I can well believe, despite the disparity in population.
One of the more visible manifestations of the increase in wine’s popularity has been the rise-and-rise of the O’Brien Group, whose stores can now be found in almost every Dublin suburb. O’Brien’s do their buying centrally, under the caring aegis of David Whelehan, a scholarly-yet-affable young man whose father ‘T.P’ was the tutor of Irish palates during The Dark Ages. His column in The Irish Times inspired the nation to venture from saccharine sweet Germany to the slopes of Bordeaux, Burgundy and beyond.
Sheridan’s cheese shops, located in South Anne Street and Pembroke Lane, Dublin and in Galway are showcases for the breathtaking quality and bewildering variety of Irish artisan cheeses and, as such, ‘must visits’ for the gastro-tourist. Latterly they too have turned their attention to wines, unveiling, at a tasting in Dublin an array of gems that italophiles, in particular, would kill to have in their cellar. What has caused me to link O’Brien’s and Sheridan’s, the one a large retailer, the other a fledgling one, may be expressed in one word – Soave.
Soave is a white wine from Italy’s Veneto, where its delineated zone abuts that of the popular red, Valpolicella. DOC status was granted in 1968 whereupon production was immediately dominated by co-operatives who swamped the market with thin, bottom dollar wines, sold for “summer drinking”. Luckily, changing market conditions forced a rethink. With a wine lake on the horizon the Soave consortium revised the rules to supplement the foot-slogging local grape Garganega with up to 30% Pinot Blanc, Trebbiano or Chardonnay. This last, in particular has come galloping to the rescue like the cavalry in a B-pic western, enabling more interesting and substantial wines to be made. Now Soave made by the better producers – Pieropan and Anselmi in particular – oozes class.

O’Brien’s stock a delightful and keenly-priced Soave; lemony, honeyed, wholesome yet non-cloying Montresor 2002, available for under e9 and worth rather more. Sheridans ‘Ca’ de Napa’ 2003, retailing in their shops for e14.50 is an altogether more subtle and suave Soave and just about as much quality as you can get for the money in white wines from anywhere in the world.