By now the first paycheck of the new year should be in but there are no scary prices below for the simple reason that I am focusing on Southern and Central Portugal this week, arguably two of the best value wine regions in the world.

Welcome to 2017, the Trump Presidency is only weeks away and we still don’t know what is happening with Brexit but at least we have wine to get us through, writes Leslie Williams.

FOR some reason, Irish cities and towns rarely make the best use of their waterways, either ignoring them or turning their backs. 

It is now 40 years since the Judgement of Paris when a blind tasting of Napa Valley cabernets and chardonnays scored higher than many famous names from Bordeaux and Burgundy.

There is a book to be written on the medical profession and its influence on the wine industry.

The only people that seem to be happy with Budget 2016 are the craft brewers. 

Irish wine drinkers are far too polite. I doubt any other consumer sector in any other country would take the same level of abuse from their government so placidly.

Every country has its hidden gems, but it’s possible that Portugal has more than most in its collection of pousadas — or high-end historic lodging houses. Tony Clayton-Lea travelled to Portugal to road-test a few of these palatial pousadas, as well as taking in the Portuguese interior.

The rumours of Port Wine’s demise have thankfully been exaggerated. While the market is overly seasonal in nature (that is, Christmas), and sales are down, sales of one style are definitely up.

Tell someone you are visiting Portugal and they assume you are visiting the Algarve on a sun or golf holiday, or perhaps taking a weekend break in Lisbon.

I haven’t featured supermarket wines in a few weeks so this week I want to mention SuperValu who have a new world wine sale on for May.

DISCLAIMER: Anything hereunder that resembles or may be interpreted as criticism, implied or otherwise, of the Algarve and its constituent parts — food, beaches, tranquility, water parks, golf courses — is entirely coincidental.

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.

FINALLY the summer seems to have arrived with a run of warm days. The barbecue has been on standby all week in my house and the heating has been turned off for the first time this year. Now I fully admit that summer drinking is a little more complicated in Ireland given how unpredictable our weather is, but warmer weather does demand a slight change in drinking habits.

IRISH wine consumers like familiarity and consistency in their wines and it is largely for this reason that over 50% of the wine we drink is from Australia or Chile and almost all of that is from grapes such as Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.

IRELAND has become a nation of wine drinkers in a very short time but the wines we drink now are quite different to those sampled in the mid-2000s.

The venue for the 2018 Ryder Cup – a fight between France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands – will be announced on May 17.

WE HUMANS are a lot closer to nature, and nature a lot closer to us, than we generally realise. And therein lies our last best hope for patching up our suicidal quarrel with our own planet.

THE Irish developers of one of Europe’s most prestigious golf resorts believe it will be hosting European tour events within a decade.

Cooler temperatures helped firefighters bring most of Portugal’s devastating wildfires under control today, although seven small new blazes broke out this afternoon.

Firefighters battled today to extinguish two large fires that swept through Portugal’s Algarve province after three days of intense blazes destroyed thousands of acres of forest and protected lands.