Open Wine at Fallon & Byrne: a quick write-up
Posted on April 17th, 2008
Saved in Sour Grapes recommends, Wine, Wine talk
The first open wine night went ahead on Tuesday evening downstairs in Fallon & Byrne.
It was a great night, with a nice mix of people, some I knew well, others I met for the first time. Rather than the wines, it was the people who made it such an enjoyable evening, so thank you to all who came.
All in all, there were about fifteen people, with varying interest in wine, again something which added to the evening.
Thank you
So, thanks a million to all who came and a special thank you to Michael and everyone in Fallon & Byrne who kept an endless supply of wine glasses coming and, of course, for the generous waiving of corkage.
What about the wines?
And onto the wines from the night (at least those I recall)
- Volnay Premier Cru (Vincent Girgardin) 2004
- A Pinot Gris from Alsace
- Hatter’s Hill (Delta Vineyards), Marlborough, NZ
Earth’s EndWild Earth, Central Otago, NZ- Firesteed, Oregon, USA 2002
- A Morey-Saint-Denis 2005
- A red Rioja – lovely
- A white Rioja – also lovely
- Mirabile – a white from Sicily
- An Argentian Malbec
- A Chianti Classico, Tuscany
Congrats to the success of the night. Will get back to you soon as I am hoping to have something similar here in Cork.
Lar,
Well done with this, 15 is an excellent turn out! Sounds like a fun evening, forgetting the names of the wines probably says it all!! How did ye go about choosing the wines? Was there any stand out wines or was it more about the craic? How do you think you will organize this going forward?
Cheers,
Will
Hi Will,
In terms of choosing the wines, it was down to whatever people wanted to pick themselves. In turned out to be a bit of a Pinot Noir battle royale with the Volnay, Morey-Saint-Denis, the Firesteed, Hatter’s Hill and Earth’s End fighting it out. Most preferred the Earth’s End while the Morey-Saint-Denis was picked out as being too young, but with good potential.
How to organise this in the future, I’m not quite sure. I had originally planned to rotate the venue but F&B are really accommodating, and it’s a great setting so I’m thinking why not run it there again next month?
Perhaps at future events, it would be worth having more of a theme by grape, country or whatever, but so there’s some expectation of what’s going to happen.
I’m completely open to suggestion, though.
Lar
Hi Elke,
anytime, just drop me a line and I’d be delighted to chat
Lar
Lar,
Sounds like the crowd decided a theme pretty well on their own. Perhaps there is a lesson in this? Is that earths end pinot the same wine that M&S are selling?
With regard to the format/venue, it’s quite obvious that F&B lend themselves quite well to this kind of a tasting. There aren’t many other venues that lend themselves to this kind of tasting without some serious negotiation. I wonder would the likes of BBR/O’Briens/Donnybrook Fair/Mitchels open themselves up to this kind of a tasting (people choose wines at retail prices and taste them on site)?
Another obvious venue for this kind of tasting would be somewhere like the Ely wine bars except that they charge bar prices but it may be a little more expensive as they charge more like restaurant prices.
It’s a pity that there isn’t more BYO restaurants in Dublin that would enable people to bring along their own bottles, this could certainly enable a more serious off-line/tasting? This format would enable more planning around themes etc.. whereas the F&B format would seem to work well that people all decide what to drink on a given evening.
There are alot of these tastings/off-lines organized in the UK through the wine-pages.co.uk forum that are worth reading about, for ideas, if you aren’t familiar with them.
Well done again,
Will
Hi Will,
thanks a mill for the input. My mistake, Wild Earth, not Earth’s End, was the PN from Central Otago.
I’ll look up wine-pages.co.uk for some ideas
Lar
The website is actually http://www.wine-pages.com. Is a great site with tons of links. And it seems that he goes to every wine tasting that is on offer…could become my full time job as well ;-)
Elke/Lar,
Apologies about the confusion, it is indeed http://www.wine-pages.com. Rather than looking at what Tom does (which is very impressive but is a professional job and most of the tastings he attends, although not all, are industry tastings) have a look at the off-line forum:
http://www.wine-pages.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=forum;f=2. These are all informal tastings organized by individuals. It would be great to get something like this up and running in Ireland.
Cheers,
Will
Will,
Thanks for the link. Went through most of them. I like the idea. The wayu I do it here in Cork at the moment is, that I ask around (email, txt) what date suits most of the girls and then I send out invites (quite posh actually ;-) the first 2 tastings I decided on the wine but for the last tasting I asked the girls to bring a bottle each that they would like to taste for the next time. I take photos of the bottles and create tasting cards where they can rate the wine and the list is then published on the blog. I like the idea of the tasting card as we can see where the wine was bought and how much it costs.
I love the idea of doing it on a more ‘official’ basis here in Cork as it is in my living room at the moment where we meet. Open to all suggestions..
;-)
It sounds as though things just went with a swing. Great news. As for the Cork end, I feel as though I ought to say “Let me know if there’s anything I can do”, but that wouldn’t be entirely honest when I know how little time I have even to fit in my real day job. “Don’t take it for granted I’m up to date with progress”, would be a more genuine comment. I’m enthusiasm-rich, but, like everybody, time-poor!
It was my first time at this type of tasting and it was stupendous. Of course most of the wines were great but, as you rightly say, Lar, it was the mix of people and the general craic that made it. Looking forward to the next one.
I’ll echo all the thumbs up comments, and look forward to the next event. I think it definitely worked best to have some similarities in the wines we chose (e.g. the Pinot taste off), so I’d suggest maybe formalising that for the next one.
As for the wine, I was particularly surprised that I preferred the Wild Earth, particularly over the Burgundies. We had tried that before at Enowine (as you’ll recall), on recommendation from the staff there, but it didn’t fare well in comparison to the other wines we tried, none of which were Pinots. Just goes to show how much the comparison matters, I suppose.
I had a really great night too and I loved the informality of it. Next time we could perhaps take a minute and decide on one theme for the evening’s tasting but in a venue like Fallon & Byrne you’d probably be a little limited in terms of what’s available and how much it might cost. I do think Fallon & Byrne is probably the best venue though, as its so informal too and the staff are so obliging. We could maybe have the next few there anyway – and possibly decide on a couple of themes – like say, South African Chenin Blanc compared with Loire Valley, Australian Shiraz compared with Syrah from the Rhone, or NZ sauvignon blanc compared with Sancerre. Maybe even just dedicate part of the evening to a more ‘discussion -led’ tasting before getting into the craic!
Either way would be great, I just really enjoyed it and would definitely be up for another night. Thanks so much again Lar for organising. Hopefully see you soon,
Caroline
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