IN the capital this St Patrick's weekend you might imagine that traffic would grind to a halt near the parade route, or on the airport road. But the Clontarf Road should also be added to the list. On a stretch between the Bull Wall and Sutton - a straight bit of seafront which is normally plain sailing at weekends - there has been chaos since yesterday morning, with cars double-parked and drivers slamming on their brakes at the first glimpse of a building recently painted unmissable dayglo tangerine. Verlings' 10th annual wine sale has begun.
For the next two weeks, wine lovers will have a chance to pick up bargains of every description. About 50 wines are on offer at substantially reduced prices. While some are from Verlings' existing stock, many have been sourced specially for the sale, with the in-store tasting team rigorously working their way through hundreds of samples.
The special offers range from Goue Vallei Chenin Blanc 1996 - a peachy, fresh South African white, reduced from £5.49 to £4.69, to Clos de la Coulee de Serrant Savannieres 1992 - a sensational, honeyed rendering of Chenin Blanc from the famous Joly family, with years of superb development ahead of it, reduced from £30 to £20. In between those two extremes are intriguing wines, both white and red, from all over the world. Quantities are limited, however. That's why wise customers will make the Lenten pilgrimage to Verlings without delay.
The sale represents, in microcosm, the individualistic policy pursued by this firmly established northside wine shop over the past 20 years. "We're adventurous," says Julie Verling. "We discover gems that nobody else has discovered. We have some amazing Italian wines that you won't find anywhere else - but we also have a lot of brilliant New World wines. Long Gully in Australia, Wheeler and Lyeth in California, Luigi Bosca, Humberto Canale and Navarra Correas in Argentina...Right now, Argentina is the business.
Although Verlings are agents for these New World names, managing director Jim Verling stresses that hard lessons learnt years ago about the fickleness of wine exporters make agency-chasing unlikely. "I'm more interested in buying up interesting little mixed parcels of wine that you won't find anywhere else," he says. At the same time, he believes that customers should be offered the widest possible choice. "If people want Piat d'Or, they should be able to find it." There's nothing elitist about Verlings. It stocks wines to suit all tastes, all budgets. That is, no doubt, a factor in its enduring success.
But an even more important one, I would guess, is the brother-and-sister partnership behind the curving blond wood counter. It may seem an unlikely alliance: Jim very much the big brother - the quiet, responsible one, so often seen at parties with a Ballygowan in his hand that there is a widespread belief he never touches alcohol at all. And Julie, the madcap younger sister with a witty tongue and a sharp palate - Jules, as she is known to her friends, equally passionate about champagne and her white Honda Prelude, fondly referred to as Francis Albert Sinatra, The Main Event.
"In the 21 years that I've been here, Julie's been with me for about 22 years," Jim jokes. When the premises was bought by their father, a recently retired publican, in 1976, Julie was a schoolgirl and Jim was set, he thought, to study architecture. "Dad was disgusted by my lack of interest in the business," he recalls. "I came down to help him one weekend and I've been here ever since."
In the early years he was joined by his elder brother, Richard, who now works in Findlaters. Together in those days when the market thirsted for little beyond Blue Nun and Black Tower, they sourced an outstanding list of Italian wines
Julie's ensnarement in the world of wine was equally unplanned. Early work in the off licence was intended to finance a media studies course at a swanky New York college. "I got superb grades and thought I was a genius, but the fees were so horrendous that I gave up after a while and went to Hawaii. Then I came back here. I've gone off travelling a few times since then. Jim gets worried every time I say I'm going on holiday, in case I stay four months and come back with a beard."
Under all the humour is serious intent. This Jules et Jim team runs a wine shop that is now one of the most agreeable in Dublin. A major refurbishment before Christmas increased the total area by 60 per cent - allowing room for hundreds of extra wines and a chill room for beers. Other innovations include a handsome display area for glassware (the Mondial range, by Schott Zwiesel, is reduced in the sale by 25 per cent) and the introduction of super cheeses and superior crackers.
Besides many Irish farmhouse cheeses from the Big Cheese Company there are some wonderful French delights, notably creamy Saint-Felicien from Beaujolais; and I'd be prepared to take Julie's word for it that Millers Damsel charcoal Wheat wafers are just the thing to nibble with champagne. Her love affair with well-bred bubbles began 15 years ago, she explains. "We had a monster bottle of Pol Roger in the shop - a salmanezah, which holds the equivalent of 12 standard bottles. The only way it would fit on the shelf was lying down, but one day it rolled off and the neck broke. I rushed home with it, grabbed an old stocking to strain out any glass fragments and called Dad. We drank most of it between us. There began my constant quest for good champagne."
This may be one reason why Verlings has such a wide range of top champagnes. It sells more Veuve Cliquot than any other shop in Ireland, thanks to a certain former northside politician's fondness for The Widow. More surprising is the news that 40 per cent of Verlings' customers come from the south side of the city. Among the better known river crossers are Larry Mullen, Neil Jordan and Chris de Burgh - a special fan of the wines of Argentina, where he was born. "A lot of people just like what we do," Jim Verling says. "They know us and have faith in us. Selling wine is such a personal business." He's absolutely right.