Wine

Cabot & Co

Buy a case of diverse wines from Cabot & Co, and you buy into two aesthetics.

The first is the aesthetic of the winemakers themselves: the restraint and subtlety of Jeffery Groset's gorgeous Clos Clare Reisling; the fascinating sherry-like vigour of Giusto Occhipinti and Titta Celia's Rami Bianco from Sicily, the zen-like precision of Paolo Masi's Chianti Rufina. Every wine has a voice, and a soul.

The second aesthetic is that of Liam and Sinead Cabot themselves. Their choice of wines and winemakers reveals a pair whose choice defines the optimum in winemaking, a high-minded selection that is based on quality, typicity, excellence and distinctiveness. Achieving this is no simple thing: you have to work hard and you have to travel many miles before you can hone and define such a personal aesthetic. The Cabots have done just that, and their list is a roll-call of truly great wines.

So, how to get the best out of Cabot & Co? How do you get a taste of this twin aesthetic? Well, simply let them choose for you. Tell Liam you want to spend €xxx on a few cases, that you don't want trophy wines, but instead you want the cutting-edge stuff: Dean Hewitson; Azienda Cos; Nino Pieropan; Philippe Montanie, and so on. Then open them bottles, one by one, evening after evening, and be amazed.

Cabot & Co, Custom House Sq, IFSC, Dublin 1 sales@cabotandco.com

Probus Wines

Paul Fogarty's wine empire in the west is expanding. With the splendid Probus Wines in Oughterard already up and running, he has now opened The Cluster, in Moycullen, with Ivan Matthews behind the counter, a name that will be familiar to many who loved Gerry and Marie Galvin's Drimcong House, where Mr Matthews worked for many years.

Direct sourcing from France has gifted the shops with a splendid Chablis from Domaine Bernard Defaix, a clean, crisp and fresh Chablis that gives the ancient appellation a good name, and the splendid Montmarin range from the Cotes de Thongue, which combines excellent typicity throughout the range of varietals with absolutely cracking value for money: winemaking of this quality at under a tenner is just the sort of stuff we all need.

Look out also for the Omaka Springs range from New Zealand – the Riesling is pale and wan in colour, but has crisp notes of honeycomb and nettle. For anyone heading off to Connemara you now have two chances to stock up for the weekend, as one lady customer did with some bubbly when we were in the Oughterard shop.

Probus Wines, tel: 091 552084
The Wine Cluster Tel: (091) 868882
probuswines@eircom.net