Not so much Angela's Ashes as Anjou Rouge and Argentinian Malbec. That's my view of Limerick, formed during a fast trot around a city that seems mightily switched on to current trends. The wine business is booming - much as it is from Galway to Glasthule, Kilmacud to Kilkenny. The difference is that here, in this city of 120,000, there are enough dedicated wine drinkers to enable one Limerick man to build an empire.
Ralph Parkes of Fine Wines looks more like an man of leisure than an empire-builder. In tweed and twills, he has the demeanour of a country squire - one with little more on his mind than tomorrow's hunt or this evening's dinner. But watch him move, fast and edgy as a foxhound, darting between several rabbit warrens of offices. See him sign the lease on new premises as he talks about his port and sherry business (huge). He is a man in a terrible hurry - a chap who has opened seven wine outlets in Limerick in seven years. "We're opening the eighth next year in Corbally," he says, breathlessly. "Then maybe we'll slow down a little."
Parkes turned his hobby of sniffing out good wine buys into a career in 1991, when Woodford Bourne decided to dispose of its old premises. With an inheritance from his father, he was able to buy it and retain the manager, John Blake - his right-hand man. Since then, Fine Wines has mushroomed on all the main routes out of the city, well-positioned to catch customers on their way home. There is also a cash and carry warehouse. But the nerve centre is in Roche's Street, smack in the centre, where the two main shops stand only metres apart.
No 48, the original store, has deli foods on the ground floor, a cigar bar upstairs and an assortment of wines for more discriminating buyers in a cosy candlelit cellar. "It's a place to browse, a library," says Parkes, adding that is it also a research unit for the quality wines the company may offer more of in five years' time. A few doors up the street is the so-called Mega Store - in fact an average-sized off-licence, but the one that stocks most of Fine Wines' main movers.
For anybody used to mooching around Dublin wine shops, visiting Fine Wines is like stepping into another world. Not better, not worse - just different, with few familiar signposts. This is because half of the wines on the shelves are imported directly by Parkes and his team. At the lower end of the price scale, many New World labels come via partnership arrangements with UK agents. Higher up the quality ladder, Parkes builds on established links with a handful of French shippers.
If you have money to spend, you'll find that Fine Wines lives up to its name (especially at the Food Hall) with scarce vintages of classed growths and other prestige bottlings at reasonable prices. There is plenty here to do honour to the poshest Limerick dinner party. "A few years ago, when GPA was at its peak and all the high-fliers were trying to outdo each other it was marvellous for us," Ralph Parkes says. "A lot of those people are still very supportive, even though they're now widely scattered. It's great when you get a fax from some guy in Singapore saying can you deliver a case of wine before he gets back to Ireland at the weekend, and this is where you'll find the house keys." But there are also bottles in Fine Wines to suit those of us with less ritzy lifestyles, as you'll see from the list below.
If you're in the mood for a decent glass of wine with a bite to eat while in Limerick, then the place to head for is the Green Onion Caffe. My colleague John McKenna notes in 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland '98 that the wine list in this buzzy spot is "one of the best written in the entire country". An extravagant claim, but I know what he means. Compared with lists which are either overweight or pared down to the bone, this one is fun.
"This place is meant to be zany and a bit mad," says chef-proprietor David Corbett, pointing to the rainbow decor "so we wanted a wine list that was deliberately a bit over the top." Hence Marques de Aragon Old Vine Grenache 1996 is described as "gobsmacking berry fruit without those bullyboy tannins. Addictive - legal." Valdivieso Cabernet Sauvignon 1996 has "oodles of comforting autumn berry fruits gently girded with a corsetry of ripe tannins to soothe the soul. Life affirming!" Comforting, indeed. The extrovert nature of Charles Searson, the main supplier, seeping through this boisterous prose, makes my own sometimes dizzy descriptions seem as sober as a civil service circular by comparison.
The Green Onion also deserves credit for having had the guts to choose an adventurous batch of wines (including flavoursome Tokaji Furmint from Hungary, Jurancon Sec from south-west France, an elegant red from the Douro in Portugal, some exciting Spanish stars). When it moves to the old town-hall building on Rutland Street, it will have a bigger wine list with more half bottles, more wines by the glass. "But in spirit it will remain the same," promises the patron. All the 20 wines currently on the list are priced between £11 and £20.
Fine Wines Limerick has six retail outlets: the Food Hall at 48 Roches Street, the Mega Store at Roches Street/Catherine Street and branches at Parnell Street, Castletroy, Dooradoyle, Thomondgate. Nationwide 48- hour delivery free for five cases or more, otherwise flat rate of £9.50. Tel: 061-417784, fax 061-417276.
Green Onion Caffe, 3 Ellen Street, Limerick (opposite the Pat- rick Street entrance to Arthur's Quay, but moving soon). Open Mon-Sat noon10 p.m. Tel: 061- 400710.
Fine ideas
White
Philip Rose Estate Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, 1995 (Fine Wines Limerick, £7.49 per bottle; buy six, get one free).
Hugely aromatic , fruity New Zealand Sauvignon at a knockdown price - a cousin of Cloudy Bay for bargain hunters. To drink up quickly: don't let it get any older.
Red
Casa Porta Cabernet Sauvignon Vallo del Cachapoal, 1996 (Fine Wines Limerick, also Oddbins Baggot St, Blackrock and at Verlings, Clontarf, £6.99).
Another typical Chilean Cabernet, all cassis and vanilla, I thought, lowering my nose into this. Wrong! Sip it and you'll find this unfiltered red has more structure than many of its competitors at the same price.
Chinon Les Menilles 1996 (Fine Wines Limerick, £6.99).
Ralph Parkes is a fan of the Loire, and it shows in a pair of Chinons. Delicately scented Chateau de La Grille 1993 (£14.95), from a topranking property, wins on finesse. This one, at less than half the price, is simply great value. See Bottle of the Week.
D'Arenberg The Old Vine Shiraz, McLaren Vale, 1995 (Fine Wines Limerick, also Superquinn, Vintry Rathgar, McCabes Merrion, Jus de Vine Portmarnock, Octavius Sligo, O'Donovans Cork and some other outlets, £8.99£9.99).
Soon to be called The Footbolt Old Vine Shiraz, this attractive black-cherries-and-chocolate number is produced by traditional methods. Well made, well priced.
Green Onion choices
White
Con Class Sauvignon Blanc, Rueda, 1997 (also available from Searsons Monkstown, Grapes of Mirth Rathmines, DeVine Wine Shop Castleknock, Kellys Clontarf, Cheers at Gibneys Malahide, Geraghty's Carlow, Wine Centre Kilkenny, O'Donovans Cork, usually about £6.75).
Spain comes up with this fresh, grassy Sauvignon - as zesty as any you can find, and not expensive.
Red
Guelbenzu Crianza, Navarra, 1996 (also from Searsons Monkstown, Grapes of Mirth Rathmines, Bottles Drumcondra, Geraghty's Carlow, Wine Centre Kilkenny, O'Donovans Cork, usually about £7.95).
"One of the most striking examples of the new-wave wines that have come out of Spain in the past five years," according to the Green Onion, and I agree. Cabernet and Merlot blended with native Tempranil lo make for a punchily assertive, tasty red.
Wine log
Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare is holding a Food and Wine Weekend, November 20th to 22th, with illustrious Bordeaux secondgrowths Chateaux Cos d'Estournel and Pichon-Lalande among the highlights. The price, £299 per person sharing, includes two nights' accommodation with breakfast, two special dinners, one champagne reception and three tastings. For more details, tel 06441600.
Grape vine
Expect a growth spurt from O'Briens Fine Wines, which has recently opened its 11th Dublin premises in the former Vintage off-licence on the Upper Rathmines Road. Two more are promised for surburban Dublin by the end of the year . . . and a nationwide network is the next goal, according to general manager, Frank Gleeson.
Match of the day
By chance more than clever planning, I sampled this week's star Chinon with a mustard-and-honey-glazed loin of bacon, and it was one of those winning matches that made both the food and the wine taste miles better together than either could alone. Mild-to-medium goat's cheese works like a dream, too.