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Friday Read: Nurturing Irish wine

Ex-somm Dennison certainly has his work cut out for him. Ireland’s damp, cold climate does not make vine growing easy, and so far, only a few producers have risen to the challenge.

“The biggest problem here – we don't have enough producers. We literally have six actual producers, and there's about 47 vineyards that have been planted, but a lot of them, they're not in production,” he says. Before adding that “slowly but surely they will come on stream”.

• Read more: Bethany Pogson – ‘Looking Back, Forging Ahead’

As more vineyards begin to operate seriously, the idea behind his association is to “protect growers and the consumers and then to create and adopt a working paper that brings in the likes of the EU legislation for wine growers right across Europe”.

Dennison is not looking to create an exclusive club. He emphasised that the association would, “invite everybody. It doesn’t matter who they are. And we'd set out a standard – you must grow your own grapes. You cannot import grapes – or grape must for that matter. I want to keep it in those parameters”.

A recent controversy in Ireland saw producer Fairy Trees Winery caught out labelling a wine as ‘Irish’ when 25% of the blend was French fruit – something these rules would aim to avoid.

Dennison will also encourage the membership to go organic – as his own farm is – and to keep alcohol levels low (between 10.5%-11.5% abv), both due to the climate, and as a response to global consumption trends.

However, he would not want to micromanage Irish producers, explaining that “as regards to winemaking, vinification and viticulture, that’s a different topic. That’s something that I would be less inclined to delve into because I think it's everybody's own business”.

The producer’s ambitions for setting up such an association may be timely. Much like in the UK, global warming is transforming Ireland’s climate and making winemaking more viable – with this year’s crop having potential to be one of the largest yet.

At the same time, winemakers are only just figuring out which varieties are going to work in the Emerald Isle’s damp conditions – mostly disease resistant hybrids such as Rondo, Solaris and Seyval Blanc.

The climate is also why Dennison wants to avoid comparisons with the UK – he compares Sussex to “French territory” – instead looking to places such as Sweden and Denmark, which he says have successfully adapted to a cool climate.

He wants his country’s producers to learn from this.

“We have to understand the grape varieties; we have to understand how they work and how to get the best flavours. And the varieties that we do grow here are some of the most exciting varieties that you will get outside of the vinifera range,” he says.

Dennison himself has planted 14 varieties over the years, including Rondo, Regent, Divico, Cabernet Cortis, Pinot Noir, Solaris, Seyval Blanc, Bacchus, Schonberger, Orion, Souvingner Gris, Jointure, Pheonix, Muscaris and Savignac.

A much-praised variety in England, he says that Bacchus only works sporadically for him, while “the likes of Solaris, Rondo, Regent and Souvingner Gris, they work every year”.

Commercially too, the burgeoning industry is still figuring out the best way to proceed, with Irish wine currently selling at a premium as low yields push up prices.

And, in terms of actually selling the stuff, Dennison explains: “As regards to supplying the likes of supermarkets and big multiples, that's not going to happen. If people sell to smaller wine shops the market will develop that way.

“If people think that they're going to have a ready-made market when their wine is ready to sell, they're in for a big shock. They will really need to develop what way they're going to sell it.”

And good luck to them. With Dennison’s association helping along the way, who knows? – Ireland could just be the next cool-climate success story.

• climate change
• ireland
• Irish Wine
• Irish Wine Association
• David Dennison
• cool-climate
• Rondo