What should you eat with a good wine? It’s simple... Doorley had a little lamb
EATS AND DRINKS
YOU could be a member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association and still have a great time at this south Dublin wine bar. Yes, the food, simple and dependent on very carefully sourced raw materials, is that good. It would be fine with filtered water or a nice cup of tea.
However, if you’re into wine, the whole experience is, in a sense, multiplied multifactorially. And when I say into wine, it’s fine if you like the odd glass of Chilean Merlot from the supermarket; they will look after you handsomely, even if you want to stay within that comfort zone. But if you have a sense of adventure in wine, along with a fascination with how certain wines taste as they do, you will have a blast.
It’s important to stress that Green Man Wines is for everyone; it’s a democratic establishment run by two men who met when working at Fallon & Byrne and who discovered a mutual interest in provenance and quality and what makes stuff taste wonderful. The enthusiasm of Pete Conway-O’Neill and Dave Gallagher is infectious and I defy anyone not to be swayed by their – and I know this is a much abused word – passion for real wine. Real sometimes to the point of being made with minimal intervention and wild ferments and all sorts of leftfield carry on.
It took me a few minutes to register that I was in such a place and, quite out of character, decided to order a glass of Prosecco to start. But I soon noticed that good sherry is mentioned on the menu and I rushed to cancel my order for fizz. Doubtless they do a fine Prosecco here (such stuff exists, by the way, but is not exactly thick on the ground) but I’m glad I did.
Anyway, sometimes people say to me ‘I have a bottle of X’, X being one of the world’s great wines in a lovely mature vintage. ‘What should I have it with?’
Well, the answer is always ‘simple food’. In fact, very often the answer is lamb chops, new potatoes and fresh peas. Chateau Petrus 1961 would be very happy in that company.
And so the food at Green Man Wines is eminently simple, so as to provide not just good sustenance but a suitable backdrop for the – literally – hundreds of wines in stock. We’re talking jamon, smoked duck breast, Manchego drizzled with honey, pâté, olives, that kind of thing.
Just my kind of thing too. This sort of eating suits my appetite. I like to graze and so we chose to do so on a wet autumn night.
We started with a board of mixed charcuterie. Now the charcuterie board has gone mainstream in recent years and there are lots of places using lacklustre, cheap stuff. If you want to taste the real thing come here to Terenure or to the French Paradox in Ballsbridge and experience the difference. We had a little glass of outstanding dry sherry, fino en rama, from Bodegas del Alguilla with this.
And then we had a whole burrata (the creamiest of special mozzarella) drizzled with the best balsamic reduction I’ve had outside Italy (and amongst the best within it) and slivers of tart plum. Lovely as this was, the true amazement lay in the choice of wine to accompany, the cultish Mark Haisma Saint-Romain, a stunning white Burgundy that merged imperceptibly and creamily with the food on the palate.
And then we went on to meat, as in meat proper. There was a generous skewer of grilled lamb, properly seasoned, full of smoky flavour, and a whole morcilla, the Spanish black pudding which always reminds me in a curious way of the Irish black pudding of my childhood, to which I was addicted.
With this we had a Beaujolais cru, a Morgon Lapierre Cuvée Camille 2016, so fresh, with real crispness and very gentle tannins, an impeccable match for what we were sharing. This pairing is where science meets art and profound knowledge and Pete Conway-O’Neill played a blinder for us.
The bill, with sparkling water and these sublime wines, came to €89. My advice is to beat a path.
WINE CHOICE
In a nutshell, the selection is sensational. The walls are lined with bottles and none of them are the usual suspects. For convenience there’s an actual wine list which comprises the edited highlights (starting at €6 a glass all in) but you can grab a bottle off the shelf and pay €8 corkage which is exceptionally reasonable given the quality of the stemware. The guys here are so knowledgeable that the sensible thing to do is to ask them to order for you. Sit back and be pleasantly surprised.
THE SMART MONEY
The charcuterie board to share for €16 is not just any old charcuterie board.
AND ANOTHER THING…
Last food orders are at 10pm, last drinks orders at 11pm.