MALAHIDE'S new wine shop, the Dublin Wine Company, oozes temptation. I'm not thinking of the carefully chosen bottles, the lIly coffee, the cheeses, the entrancingly-packaged Skelligs chocolates or Carluccio's tomato sauce whose temporary absence causes a customer acute and voluble distress. The whole enterprise has a dangerous allure. Propped against the barrel-like counter, surveying the cosy interior and the two owners decked out in claret and black like bottles of Bordeaux in human form, you think, for a few risky minutes: If ever I had a wine shop, this is how it might be.
That is precisely what Ann Moran thought when, during a holiday in the Napa Valley, she stumbled across an inspiring shop dedicated to wine, food and wine accessories. Since leaving her post in Switzers' accounts department a few years before, she had become interested in food, then wine. "I did the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe Cookery School. John O'Connell lectured - on wine and got me hooked."
Her accountant husband initially urged caution, on the grounds that Ireland wasn't ready for a shop based on the Californian model. By last autumn, however, when the news came through that Ann and her fellow student Sonjia Maher had passed their Wine Diploma exams, the pair had decided to go into partnership. "I've lived here all my life and I knew Malahide was the right location," says Sonjia, who had previously worked in the beer business. "I told my husband: this is what I really want to do, so, says Ann, with a resolute shrug.
Seven months since the door opened in time for a busy Christmas, the Dublin Wine Company seems to be thriving. Its proprietors mention two factors in its success. The food is a definite draw, especially during the day. "The other thing we're surprised - and delighted about is the large number of women customers we have," says Ann Moran. "It's much less intimidating for them to come into a shop run by two women. They'll bring in their dinner party menus and ask us to choose wines to match." The flip side of female ownership is that some blindly chauvinistic importers reps still come in and ask to speak to the boss. "And then we give them a little black mark,"
Sonjia Maher says, only half joking.
Their range of wines spans the world, with Chile and the South of France selling best - "fabulous quality in relation to price", followed by South Africa, "maybe because so many people around here are going there now on holiday". But make no mistake: the upper end of the market is well catered for, too - and an elevated upper end it turns out to be. There are more than a dozen sparkling wines, including the lovely Greenpoint, and more than a dozen top champagnes including Krug and Dom Perignon. "We're completely cleaned out of both, after the communions last week-end," say the Wine Company women wistfully. You'll get the measure of booming Malahide when you hear that their bestselling champagne is the self-same DP, at £70 a bottle.
A FEW miles around the coast in Portmarnock is another shop whose name is being mentioned more and more. And what a name! It's Jus de Vine, an unsettling blend of the juice of the vine, jus de vin, and the anticipated reaction, just divine. "I have an aunt who lived in France for years and she was horrified when she heard we were calling the shop Jus de Vine," grins Paul Dempsey, "but I told her to stop worrying about the spelling and think about the way the Dubs would say it.
It is eight years since this off-licence opened near the core of what was, at the time, a fledgling town. Paul Dempsey, an employee of Superquinn for 10 years, and Paul McKenna, who had been in the bar business, were initially employed as managers but have since become owners. Since November, when the shop was revamped, "business has been zipping along".
"A lot of our customers are relatively new wine drinkers," says Paul Dempsey. "It's very different from Blackrock where I used to work where families might have been drinking wine for generations. Slowly, we try to wean people away from the big brands to more interesting wines. It takes time, but we find the thirst for knowledge is incredible." Bouncy and ebullient, he has run introductory wine courses from the beginning and they keep growing.
What is interesting about Jus de Vine is that, within the confines of a fairly conventional off-licence in a modest area, Paul Demspey has found room to stamp his robust personality along the wine shelves. Sprinkled among the familiar sellers are all sorts of more unusual bottles, from a tingly dry Spanish white, Antonio Barbadillo Castillo de San Diego, made from Palamino, the sherry grape (£6.99) to 100-year-old Ramos Pinto brandy (£35.99).
"I love introducing people to madeira and sherry and white port," he says, cranking up the surprise level. "I love Portuguese wines because they're so different, and the wines of Ribero del Duero in Spain because they're just so big. Have you tried this Italian Muscat? It's brilliant! And look at this stunning white Corbieres. If this energetic pursuit of offbeat treats goes on much longer, he'll be changing the name over the door to the Young Curi-Shop.