Dublin isn’t overwhelmed with BYO restaurants, particularly those that don’t charge corkage, but of those that do let you bring in your own wine, many are southern and/or eastern Mediterranean-themed.  Of course this makes sense when those areas have high numbers of practising Muslims who don’t drink alcohol, and don’t want to profit from selling it, but are happy for you to drink with their food.

Among the best of those BYOs is Keshk Café Restaurant, just by the Canal on Dublin’s southside.  So what better place for five like-minded wine bloggers to meet up for food, drinks and a natter!

The food was lovely and may have been inadvertently on the healthy side, with fresh salads and grilled meat.  I will leave further description of the food to others, but below are the wines we tasted.  As co-ordinator I suggested two criteria for each diner’s choice of wine:

1) A retail price of between €20 and €30 (after a few years of duty rises this is now the sweetspot for wine in Ireland)

2) The wine should be a favourite or something the person fancied trying (all grapes and all regions allowed!)

Codorniú Anna Blanc de Noirs NV (€10, Madrid Airport)

Along with Frexinet, Cordoniu is one of two big Cava houses who dominate sales volumes.  Every year they pump out hectolitres of ordinary fizz, which is exactly the sort of thing that I avoid.  You know the stuff I mean – and it’s undercut in the UK and Ireland by even less expensive supermarket own-label pap.  This race to compete on cost and not quality has done significant damage to the Cava brand, so obtaining a fair price for a well-made one is difficult.

Thankfully a few well-made ones do find their way over here, even if it’s just a chance purchase at Madrid Airport.  This is a 100% Blanc de Noirs made from Pinot Noir, one of the two main black grapes of Champagne.  Of course being a DO Cava it is made in the traditional method, though the regulations for Cava are not as strict as those for the Champenois.

Given its constituent variety there was no surprise to find lovely red fruit, primarily strawberry and raspberry, but there was also stone fruit such as apricot, and even lees characters which confirm that this is a level above everyday Cava.

Anna is very well put together and something I will look out for in future.

Setz Easy To Drink Grüner Veltliner 2013 (€18, Honest 2 Goodness)

The alcohol of 11.0% gives you a good clue as to the style of this Groovy – light quaffing material.  The wino who brought this is a big fan of the variety, especially after attending a 100% varietal tasting last year (which I covered here).  It’s not the type of wine to win lots of Parker Points or Wines Of The Year Awards but it’s just very pleasant to drink.

I have a feeling this will be seeing a lot more glasses in the summer months.

Jean Chartron AOP Rully “Montmorin” 2012 (€30 down to €20, The Corkscrew)

Well that’s one way of hitting both ends of the suggested price range!  Rully is one of the better communes on the Côte Chalonnaise, the section of Burgundy in between The Côte d’Or and the Mâconnais.   This was amazing complexity for such a young wine.  To be honest if I’d tasted that blind I’d have guessed at something north of €40 from the Côte de Beaune.

The producer Jean Charton is based in Puligny-Montrachet but also produces whites in Chassagne-Montrachet, Saint-Aubin, Rully and the generic Burgundy appellation.

There was a definite vanilla and toast influence from oak, but not the full butterscotch sauce experience.  I’m guessing that quite a bit of the creaminess came from lees stirring rather than extended ageing in barrel.  Monsieur Colm from the Corkscrew says they have experienced a little more bottle variation than normal, but most of them ZING!

Meyer-Fonné AOP Alsace Gewurztraminer Réserve 2013 (€22.95, The Corkscrew)

This is one of my favourite Alsace producers with a fantastic range.  My lubricated French came out with the term “correct” which is a handy shorthand for a wine that accurately reflects its ingredients and origins, and is well made, but is somewhat prosaic, nothing that makes you go “Wow”.

This Gewurz was off dry, with the variety’s typical lychees and flowers, plus some spicy ginger.  It would probably have shone more with spicier food; given where we were eating there was a good chance of some heat, but I think we made conservative food choices when it actually came to ordering so we’d be able to give all the wines an even chance.

Château Musar Bekaa Valley 2003

In a Mediterranean restaurant, what would be more fitting than a true Mediterranean wine?  From the some-time war zone of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon comes a wine which is full of contradictions:

• It’s an alcoholic product from a country with a good number of Muslims.
• It’s made with Bordeaux’s flagship grape Cabernet Sauvignon and the southern Rhône’s Cinsault, Carignan, Mourvèdre and Grenache. The proportions change from vintage to vintage.
• On the nose there’s a big whiff of nail polish remover, a sign of Volatile Acidity which is considered a major fault in wine.
• After that there’s a fair dose of farmyard, to be polite, or horseshit, to be less polite. This is another fault caused by the pernicious strain of yeast Brettanomyces, called Brett for short.

Yet it works!  And boy does it work!

This bottle had been double decanted which gave it a real chance to shine.  At 12 years from vintage it’s still a callow youth, with plenty of years ahead of it.

Domaine Coursodon AOP Saint Joseph “L’Olivaie” 2012 (€40, Wine Workshop)

For this cuvée maturation is shared between demi-muids (20% new) and pièces (0% new).  Although not specifically parcellaire, the components of this cuvée come mainly from St Jean de Muzols and the vines average over 60 years in age.

A lovely wine showing poise and potential but not yet unfurling its wings.  Brooding dark black fruit and a twist of black pepper meet on the palate.  Saint Joseph is rapidly becoming my go-to appellation in the northern Rhône

A couple of hours decanting would have shown it at its current best.  I’d love to try this again with more sympathetic treatment (and earlier in the evening!)

Carlo Gentili Chianti DOCG Riserva 2010

Just a random Chianti which I had lying around at home.  It was the seventh bottle of the evening.  It had great aromas of Chianti which followed through to the palate – fantastic Chianti flavour.  For further info have a look here.