The winner of our Irish Times Food Month wine competition for 2025 is Isobel Leddin from Co Offaly.
Selected on Wednesday evening from a panel of five finalists at an event hosted by competition partner, The K Club Hotel and Resort in Co Kildare, Leddin has won a year-long wine experience worth an estimated €10,000.
This includes a behind-the-scenes visit to Barton & Guestier’s Château Magnol in France for lunch and wine tastings, flights to Bordeaux and a two-night hotel stay for two people, as well as an opportunity to shadow The K Club’s chief sommelier Lisa O’Doherty at a wine tasting.
Leddin and a guest will also enjoy a private wine cellar tour and tasting with O’Doherty followed by dinner in the Barton Grill at The K Club and an overnight stay in the hotel.
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The five finalists ‐ Leddin, Cian Conroy, Bernadette Waldron, Eoin Whelan and Niamh Cotter ‐ were chosen from more than 700 entrants to the sommelier competition based on their short submissions on a bottle of wine that inspired them.
Leddin wrote of a wine she tasted during a holiday to Bordeaux with her mother. She said taking the overall prize was “incredible”, adding that she hoped the win would “advance my wine journey”. She described her interest in wine being properly awoken when she visited a vineyard in Tuscany on a family holiday at age 21 and saw the agricultural element of production. Since then, she has tried to take wine-related trips every year, tasting Romanian and Japanese wines along the way. “I associate wine with food, family and travel,” she said.
O’Doherty, who judged the contest for amateur wine-lovers alongside Irish Times wine critic John Wilson, said all of the finalists had impressed. “It was one of the highest standards we’ve had,” she said. This was the fourth year of the Food Month wine competition.
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Leddin’s winning entry focused on Château Le Châtelet, Grand Cru Classé, Saint-Émilion 2022, which she encountered as part of the Fête le Vin in June 2025. She visited the château with her mother upon the recommendation of a local waiter, finding a wine with elegance and aromas that struck her immediately. It almost felt as if the wine held more than it was ready to reveal, she wrote. “As I looked at my mother’s beaming face in her little sun hat, glass of wine in hand, I hoped we would celebrate an occasion some day in the future that would be a fitting stage for this wine, and a marker of the beautiful day we enjoyed in that quintessential French village on a warm summer’s day in 2025.”
Cian Conroy’s submission recalled the wine at his 2024 wedding, Château Sainte Lucie d’Aussou – Lux Venandi, which he said was the perfect guest and the easiest decision out of all the wedding arrangements. Conroy and his wife served it alongside braised beef cheek. It was at the centre of the toast in his speech and helped to choreograph the cheer, he wrote, adding that guests still remember the wine. Conroy and his wife, based in Co Cork, are down to their last three bottles, waiting for their next anniversary to open one.
Bernadette Waldron, from Co Roscommon, wrote of La Solatìa Pinot Grigio, which she tasted during a magical stay in Riglione, near Pisa in Italy. She said the village could have been the set of Cinema Paradiso, with the bakery/wine bar on the single main street providing the perfect backdrop to watch the sun set over the Arno alongside locals. The celebration of her 43rd wedding anniversary during the trip led to an invitation to cook a meal for her new friends, and the creation of a prawn pasta dish the locals said was “adatto agli angeli” (fit for angels), while the Pinot Grigio was “adatto agli dei” (fit for the gods).
Dublin-based Eoin Whelan took inspiration from a wine he found in Nova Scotia in Canada, not a region he had previously associated with the top level of viticulture. He said he opened the Benjamin Bridge Brut Reserve, expecting a pleasant, local drink – not the depth, finesse and tension he experienced. He could taste cool Atlantic breezes and the rugged, determined spirit of the province, with the wine’s crisp acidity and complexity reminding him of champagne. He said Benjamin Bridge taught him that excellence does not depend on reputation, size or history, but can appear in unexpected corners if people are aligned with the land.
Niamh Cotter, from Co Louth, wrote of experiencing a 2020 Canto del Sol Malbec, which she tried after the kind of long week in work that made her dream of baking sourdough for a living. She described the wine’s nose coming at her immediately with blackberry and plum, plus cocoa and a faint smoky note. A thread of acidity stopped everything turning syrupy, she wrote, while a hint of black pepper appeared mid-palate with a discreet swagger. It’s the kind of wine, she concluded, that might persuade you to cancel plans and stay at home for another glass.
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