Ireland may not be on the world map for wine making*, thanks in no small part to our colder and wetter climate, but that might be about to change.
Brett Stephenson, who, along with his wife Pamela has set up a winery using only Irish fruits, and joined the Jennifer Zamparelli show to discuss how the pair decided to turn the best of Irish fruit into very unique wines. Listen back above.
The couple started their winemaking journey in the Bay Area of San Francisco, where they saw friends making wine from berries. Inspired by their produce, Brett and Pamela started with berry wine before tackling all manner of fruits, from peaches and bananas, to pineapples. Crucially, not a single grape was used in their project.
By 2013, their home was filled with about "1,000 litres of wine", Brett said. "My wife turned to me and said, I think it's time we probably move this stuff out of here."
Fast forward 10 years and the pair are still making wines that don't use any grapes - or water. "It's just berry juice pressed, quite large quanities of fruit used, and then made the same way as grape wine."
Berry wine made from strawberries, blackberries or raspberries, he added, is lower in alcohol that traditional wine, sitting at around 11%. His personal favourite is strawberry wine, he said.
"That's the most unique of the three, it's hard to compare it to anything else out there", he said. "Strawberry wine drinks like a white wine and I suppose when you picture berries or particularly strawberries, you expect this wine that's going to be a dessert wine."
With roughly 150 strawberries in each bottle, Brett added that when you smell it, "you get this huge strawberry aroma, but when you taste it it's not that sweet".
The blackerry and raspberry wines, however, are far more intense, with the blackberry closer to a Malbec, Brett said, and the raspberry the sweetest and tartest of the three.
Their winery opened in 2015 before they launched at Bloom the following year. The journey from their friends' kitchen to owning their own company took many jumps through many hoops, especially as in the EU wine is designated as a product made from grapes. However, the EU does recognise their product as wine, particularly as it's made using the same process.
You can have no better vote of confidence than a Michelin-starred restaurant stocking your product, which is exactly what two-Michelin starred restaurant Chapter One did. After this first win, many other restaurants followed suit, including Adare Manor and Ashford Castle, as well as Avoca and Fallon & Byrne.
"The chefs are all really into it because now they can serve their Irish produce with Irish drink, whereas previously they might have a steak but they'd have to serve it with a French wine."
Listen back to the full interview by clicking above.
