Weekend wine with Blake Creedon

WHETHER you’ve a late change of plan or unexpected extra guests, you can still put together a cracking wine list for Christmas dinner if you get moving early today.

Apart from Aldi, M&S and Lidl, which stock only own-label wines, the stores here should have the upper tiers of great names such as Villa Maria, Cono Sur, Peter Lehmann, and good bubbly too such as Marques De Monistrol and Jacob’s Creek. The bigger branches of the chains below will of course have wider ranges. It gets more complicated with Centra and SuperValu, where the selection depends on the local franchise owners and what market they’re setting out to serve: some match the best specialist wine shops.

Off-licence chains such as O’Briens and O’Donovans are among the best hunting grounds for classy wines in a hurry, and provide most of my highlights below, as are independents such as Bradley’s, North Main Street, Cork; The Corkscrew, and Redmonds of Ranelagh.