MONITOR:Everything is changing at Bill Kelly's hotel in Rosslare – except the enduring good value, writes HUGO ARNOLD

DOMAINE DE TREVALLON is something of a boutique wine. You don’t see it often, and although easy to pronounce, it comes from an austere part of Provence where the ground is more rock than soil. The intense and searing light can often make for quite intense wines in this area of France, but this wine has real elegance, a restrained style that is a clear reflection of its owner and maker Eloi Dürrbach, who I met many years ago.

So there I am sitting in La Marine Bistro in Kelly’s Resort Hotel in Rosslare, Co Wexford, having been abandoned by my children, who opted for room service and a movie over having dinner with dad, who was on single-parent weekend duty. On the wine list is Trevallon – at the jaw-dropping price of just €49.

Now, €50 is a lot to spend on a bottle of wine, but to buy Trevallon in a shop costs almost the same, or €45 from Karwig Wines in Cork. What is going on?

Iwona Szutran’s face lights up – staff at Kelly’s all sport name badges – when I order my bottle, and she cannot contain her excitement when she returns to open it. Not only does she adore Trevallon, she knows both the owner and his daughter, the latter having come to Kelly’s for a stage the previous year. This is the 2005, but she thinks she has the 2001, if I would prefer. She says both are drinking well, and I am disinclined to have her searching about for a lone bottle. She pours, decants on request and we smile together. It is as good as I remembered, a real journey in a glass. The Provence sunshine cuts through the autumnal night outside.

Value is uppermost in all our minds at the moment, yet with the endless supermarket price wars and the sea of early-bird, two-for-one and three-for-two deals, it is refreshing to see some leopards are not changing their spots. Good operators are all about value, and always have been. Bill Kelly is a leading light. The combination of enthusiasm and keen price has me overcoming any doubts about the indulgence. I can always put a cork in the bottle and make it last another night, I tell myself.

All is changing at Kelly’s, and that doesn’t happen very often. Executive chef Jim Aherne is retiring after 35 years at the top spot in Beaches, the main restaurant. I’m glad to say he is being replaced by Eugene Callaghan, the current chief at La Marine Bistro, where I am tucking into a very succulent rib-eye steak, unadorned and partnered by deliciously creamy potatoes dauphinoise.

This movement of staff at senior level is a bit of a tsunami in a business that is not renowned for change. As Bill Kelly says, there are people who have been coming to the hotel the same week every year since they were born. His hands are somewhat tied. Many of them do not like change. And yet he does not stand still. Staff are taken on field trips, the buildings are constantly being nipped and tucked. The faces may stay the same, but the experience just goes on growing. And so it is with the wine list.

As with many of the wines on a list that kicks off with Burgundy, splashes into Bordeaux and then dips its toe around the rest of the world, most of the importing is done directly, without any middle men, and year after year, just like with the guests, there is a strong bond. That means deals can be struck, offers passed on and the cellar managed with the customer always in mind. Kelly’s is family-friendly, certainly, but it is recession-friendly, too.

harnold@irishtimes.com