The obituary writers have been busy this year and the case is equally true in the wine world.

Easter Saturday is not necessarily the time you would expect me to be writing about spicy foods but my favourite Easter dinner is a rich yoghurt and spice marinated slow-cooked lamb dish called lamb raan, and it was thinking about this that led me to tackle once again the issue of wine and spice.

January is a month for learning new things and many off-licences are offering wine courses this month and early next month.

Nobody knows Irish food better than Joe McNamee. From chutney to cheese, craft beer to chocolate, he’s put together The Menu’s Annual Christmas Hamper – full of the local products that really stood out this year. Plus, he’s got the top gifts for foodies.

I’m a little late focusing on the Rugby World Cup, but with the final group matches this weekend there will be a lot of tension around and you may need a glass of wine to calm your nerves.

In my garden at the moment my plum and two apple trees are in full bloom and I am already anxiously anticipating a good crop of fruit.

Now that there appears be a chink of light at the end of the recession tunnel — given the number of new wine shop and wine bar openings — I thought I would talk gadgets this week.

A history of creative endeavour at Dublin’s Pulse College is to be continued as it launches the country’s largest ever peer-to-peer loan campaign.

A 101-year-old Dublin institution is hoping to entice lenders with a piping hot deal on crowdfunding website Linked Finance in what is the platform’s biggest ever campaign.

Readers of this column may be getting tired of my raising the issue of excise duty on wine but bear with me for just a few sentences. 

SORRY to mention the war but this is pre-budget submission time and talking to some of those wine trade in recent weeks reminded me how difficult Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, has made it for small wine shops.

Rather than going back to the banks, a Cork-based wine company has secured a loan of €30,000 from its customers’ pockets.

THE lights are on, the music is on the radio and the trees are up — there is no getting away from it: Christmas is imminent.

DOES the glass you drink from effect the taste of the wine?

THERE is an old adage about the wine industry that if you want to make a small fortune, you need to invest a very large one first.

AFTER an admittedly disastrous spring the Irish summer has been quite respectable so far with reasonably warm days and nights and just occasional bouts of rain.

IS GREAT wine made in the vineyard or in the winery?

Bright clean cherries and strawberries on the nose with lovely fresh clean red fruit flavours on the palate.

You can’t promote your own award-winning wine in Ireland without including a visit to Cork.

While the pre-theatre dinner is a great boon to the restaurateurs, The Menu confesses to finding such dining to be overly rushed so is much taken with the Ballyvolane House solution, whereby the theatre comes to the diners.

IT’S that time of year again and the calendar is stuffed with delicious events.

Wine tastings are always interesting, but the organisers of a one-off event devoted to the riesling grape next month have outdone themselves.

Never mind the weather — out here in the Atlantic, there’s no predicting from day to day whether we’ll be basking in the sun or dodging the hail — but the clocks go forward an hour tonight, meaning that from tomorrow it’ll be bright until about 8pm, inspiring us to head towards lighter dishes on the dinner menu and wines that put the emphasis on freshness and light.

ST Valentine’s night is peak season for dinner à deux and I’ll be looking at some smoochy wine ideas next week.

ALONG with spices such as vanilla, coffee is catnip for humans, a sort of mildly psychoactive cup that cheers.

HERE’s a particularly good example of the top-class fun and great value offered by winemaker dinners.

SUPERQUINN’s wine range has been greatly reinvigorated in recent years, and now includes some tremendous affordable wine, much of it from France.

TWO wineries plus three cities equals a surefire treat for wine lovers this month: The most promising wine events in the autumn line-up (so far) have to be the tastings in Cork, Dublin and Kilkenny featuring wines from Langmeil in the Barossa region of Australia and Huia in Marlborough, New Zealand.

THE sémillon grape isn’t used to the glare of publicity, but it suddenly popped up last week when a French restaurateur paid a record €85,000 for a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem 1811 — the most expensive bottle of white wine ever sold.

YOU’LL occasionally hear wine fans joke that when faced with a choice they’ll opt for whatever wine has the highest alcohol level.

IT’S coming up to last orders at Ireland’s online wine shops, with most of them bringing down the metaphorical shutters in the next few days — although of course most online wine shops do also trade in physical bricks-and-mortar stores, most of which will remain open up to Christmas Eve.