TAKING THE PISS

reland, I think it’s fair to say, is not known for its wine culture. According to its pre-eminent 20th-century author James Joyce, the “wine of the country” was (wait for it) Guinness, and, having spent some time in Dublin in the early 2000s, I can think of no better drink pairing for traditional dishes such as corned beef and cabbage, Irish stew, and possibly even oysters, than stout.

Interestingly, however, the Guinness brewery only started producing stout around 1780, prior to which the Irish drank goodly amounts of claret. This was thanks to a number of Ireland’s so-called “Wild Geese” (the Jacobites who followed Catholic King James II into exile in France in 1691) having set up as wine merchants in Bordeaux. Some of them even went into wine production, their legacy living on in the names of châteaux such as BoydCantenac, Clarke, Dillon, Kirwan, LéovilleBarton, Lynch-Bages and Phélan Ségur.

All of which left James Joyce stone cold sober. “Red wine looks and tastes like a liquefied beefsteak,” he wrote. He preferred white wine (“like electricity”) and his favourite was Switzerland’s light and fruity Fendant de Sion, which he fondly likened to an “archduchess’s most excellent piss”.

The Downes brothers of Shannon Vineyards in Elgin in the Western Cape, whose paternal forefathers hailed from County Cork, can probably count themselves lucky Joyce isn’t around to dis their award-winning merlot, but he’d surely have enjoyed their Sanctuary Peak Sauvignon Blanc 2014 (around R105).

Made by Gordon and Nadia Newton Johnson of Newton Johnson Vineyards, this is no ordinary, easy drinking sauvignon but relatively rich and fullbodied thanks to an 11% component of barrel-fermented sémillon. Noblewomanelegant with perfectly balanced acidity and beautiful purity of fruit (citrus, gooseberries, white peaches), it should go down a treat with some smoked salmon and soda bread this St Patrick’s Day.