Tom Doorley

Christmas 1978, I was unskilfully wrapping wine

My relationship with Mitchell’s, Ireland’s most venerable wine merchants, goes back a very long time. It was my Trinity friend, the late Rodney Overend, who introduced me to the joys of working in the old Kildare Street premises at Christmas 1978, mainly engaged in wrapping, a skill which I have yet to master.

The next year I was summoned by the patriarch, Bobby Mitchell or Mister Robert as he was referred to in the company, and asked to work again. I negotiated a modest rise (with considerable difficulty) and I was back, this time out on the vans lugging cases of wine around. I learned to be extra careful of the ones a colleague of mine used to call ‘Mon Trashy’. In those days, Mitchell’s used to still bottle port and I’ll never forget the — literally — intoxicating atmosphere as Noval LBV was decanted from the cask. Corks were ‘flogged’ into bottles and the necks dipped in molten sealing wax.

Mitchell’s started trading in Dublin seven years before Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow and while they are no longer in Kildare Street, they continue to thrive in the IFSC and in Glasthule where Bobby’s son Jonnie and grandson Robert carry on the family tradition in 21st century style. They still import directly (while also dealing with other Irish importers) and I recall Bobby, or Mr Robert rather, recalling how he used to go hunting in Bordeaux with one of the great nègociants. His host described Chateau Cheval Blanc in the rather weedy 1960 vintage as ‘a perfectly good breakfast claret’!

Mitchell’s offer a great range, not just in the classics but in eclectic areas too, plus a fine range of spirits and, latterly, craft beers. They have always delivered nationwide. I once made up an order for 12 dozen Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé to go to a peer in Co Waterford.

Equally, I recall delivering a single bottle of Mitchell’s University Amontillado Sherry once a week to an elderly lady in Blackrock.