Food news with Joe McNamee

The exceedingly swish Castlewood House team up with town neighbours Dingle Cookery Schooland photographer Monika Coghlan of Pepperazzi for a Food Styling & Photography weekend with a workshop including cookery demo and lunch from DCS proprietor and all-round force of nature Mark Murphy at the school, a craft brewery tour at Dick Mac’s pub as well as Sunday lunch from The Little Cheese Shop.

This week Leslie Williams recommends two juicy reds and three northern whites

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean and fiercely independent — it is after all an island between two continents — Africa and Europe

Looking for gift ideas for food lovers? Strap yourselves in for a Christmas shopping spree with The Menu.

Want a little Christmas spirit? From sparkling wines to cider, beer to gin, our wine columnist, Leslie Williams, has the perfect list to choose from.

How much longer can the Murphy’s wonderful cooking remain undiscovered by the rest of the country?

The world of wine is a large place and columns like this I hope help distil it down to a manageable size.

Ireland was always very brand-conscious up until recently and it took the arrival of the German discounters and the recession to shake us up a little.

April has been declared ‘Natural Wine Month’ by Le Caveau wine merchants in Kilkenny which specialises in organic, bio-dynamic and ‘natural’ wines.

There has been a lot of publicity about the new UK alcohol guidelines and much discussion about the benefits of a “dry January” these past few weeks. I’m not convinced.

The thing I love most about the Christmas meal is that for once I am not the only one fussing and worrying about what wine to serve. 

Two brave David’s to talk about this week — David Whelehan of Whelehan’s Wines which opened in December in the old Silver Tassie pub in Loughlinstown on the N11; and Dave Gallgher of Green Man Wines in Terenure which opened last month.

Italy is on my mind this week having recently watched the documentary Natural Resistance at the Grainstore in Ballymaloe about rebel “natural” wine makers in Italy.

The buzz word in the wine world is ‘natural’. While many of the best wines are made with minimal interference, producers of natural wines are more rigorous.

I am often asked where I like to buy my wine and the honest answer is (and should be), everywhere. However I must confess a bit of a bias towards the independent sector.

APRIL is Real Wine Month which focuses on minimal intervention “natural” wines and also low intervention organic and biodynamic wines.

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

NEW ZEALAND wine producers held their annual wine fair in Dublin earlier this month and it seems Ireland is now their fifth largest export market with sales having increased by around 12% in 2012.

WINE fans may seem to have an odd attitude to sweetness, dismissing some popular wines as being far too sugary, while exulting at many of the far sweeter ‘dessert’ wines.