Wine blow-ins: three veteran wine importers from abroad tell us how they have watched the Irish market change

Ireland’s wine importers are largely unknown to most consumers, tending to stay out of the limelight as they quietly supply their wines to retail outlets, restaurants and hotels. But despite being more or less anonymous, they have a massive influence on the wines we all buy. Here, I shine a light on three importers who came to Ireland from other countries more than 20 years ago and have since settled here. All report witnessing substantial changes in the Irish market over their time.

Pascal Rossignol of Le Caveau

When I call Pascal Rossignol, he is on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily harvesting grapes. “I just wanted to be there in the moment,” he says. It is an example of how immersed he is in wine, with an enthusiasm that has not lessened in his 30 years in Ireland.

Rossignol is joint owner of Le Caveau, one of the leading independent wine importers in Ireland, best known for its huge range of natural wines. He is originally from Burgundy in France, first arriving in Ireland because of a book – he was fascinated by the works of local Burgundian author Henri Vincenot, who wrote about Celtic history and heritage. “I became passionate, intrigued by the Celtic culture and I started to read a lot of books,” he says.

“I developed the idea that Ireland was an incredible place and I needed to see it. I left the vineyards. I decided that first I needed to learn English. I went to London and there met my first Irish people ever, including Geraldine who became my wife.”

In 1990, the couple moved to Cork, where Rossignol worked with Michael Clifford in his restaurant.

“I worked there initially as a casual waiter but one day he told me the sommelier was pregnant and taking maternity leave – ‘You’re French, you know wine’ – so he gave me the job.”

Rossignol recalls Ireland being “tough”, with the couple staying for six months before moving to France, while still holding out hope for another Irish opportunity. “Eventually there was a job as a hotel manager in a small hotel in Sligo and in 1995 we moved back.”

In 1999, they set up Le Caveau as a retail shop in Kilkenny and began to import some of their own wines from France. “Geraldine was from Carlow and Kilkenny was this lovely, very busy town with some kind of wealth,” says Rossignol.

“Very quickly some restaurants, mostly in Dublin, came to us and said, ‘Oh, my God you have Tour de Gendres, du Cèdre and Montus, would you be able to sell them to us?’ I had to reorganise everything because I had never allowed for wholesale to be part of what we wanted to do.”

The reorganisation obviously worked as Le Caveau is now listed in many of the best restaurants in the country. In fact the wholesale business became so busy (and the shop not busy enough) that the couple decided to change their retail focus to a website. “It’s a pretty small family-run business.” says Rossignol. “Today, if you look LeCaveau.ie, there is a Charles and a Margaret – my son and daughter-in-law – myself, and Geraldine. Then we have four salespeople.”

Rossignol says the business always had artisan growers on its roster – small producers making wine that really reflects their region.

“There was a lot of originality, handmade wine in a small scale. That’s how we started and we were up against the best-known wines coming from bigger producers,” says Rossignol, noting that most retail wine is sold in supermarkets, so sellers such Le Caveau are only dealing with “a tiny part of the market”.

He says the move to natural wine, now hugely popular, was gradual at first. “The change came just before, during, and after the pandemic ... [Now] anything like 80 per cent of new businesses wanting to set up as a wine shop with either a bakery or a cafe, or a new wine bar – they would definitely look for low-intervention wines.”

Today, Le Caveau has a formidable selection of natural and low-intervention wines. As the world of wine expands, so the business increases its range to include the most obscure regions. Over the past few years, for example, it has built up a range of wines from Georgia.

Enrico Fantasia of Grape Circus

The Irish wine trade throws up many interesting characters, few more intriguing than Enrico Fantasia. He offers a massive wine list, with a strong emphasis on low-intervention options. Most, but not all, are from his native Italy. Many of the wines are from obscure regions and made with equally unknown grape varieties.

“I was born in Venice but my family moved around quite a lot in Italy and then I went back to Venice when I was, I think 13 or 14, so I consider myself a full-time Venetian. I’m a classical musician, or I was a classical musician. I studied in Venice at the music conservatory and then I played the French horn in many orchestras including the I Solisti Veneti and La Fenice Opera house,” he says.

Fantasia always had a strong interest in food, as well as being a very keen fly fisherman, among other things.

“My family from my mother’s side were butchers. One of my best friends is Dario Cecchini, the famous traditional butcher in Panzano. In 2010, he called me and said, ‘Listen, you know that you have the genes, so you need to learn the basics of butchery. You know, you can never say no to Dario so I worked for a while in his butcher shop.”

The story of his move to Ireland is long and complicated, but was the result of meeting a number of Irish people in Verona where he was working in a wine bar, one of whom was Seamus Sheridan of Sheridans Cheesemongers. The two hit it off and became friends.

“We still are,” Fantasia says. “I was in between jobs and he called me and said, ‘I want to open a restaurant in Galway; would you help me?’ I said, ‘Well, why not’?”

The plan was for Fantasia to help with the first few weeks of setting up the kitchen.

“When I arrived in Ireland there was no planning for the restaurant so we decided to open a wine shop above the Sheridans cheese shop in Galway. They wanted to import the wines directly so I started to put together a selection for them. The plan was to leave after a few weeks. That was 2020 and I’m still working in a partnership with Sheridans, but I have my own company, Grape Circus.”

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The venture started with only Italian wines but Fantasia quickly realised that interest was relatively limited. “The exceptions were Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and pinot grigio or the odd case of Barolo. So every time that I went to a new restaurant they would look at the list and say, ‘Oh, Italian wines, thank you very much’ before closing the list and that was it. Back then, the interest was for French wines; white burgundies and red Bordeaux. Champagne was the only sparkling wine.”

Similarly, says Fantasia, Spain was Ribera, Rioja and a bit of Cava. “There was no curiosity, no interest, and the red wines had to be 14-14.5 per cent abv. Back then Australia was a massive presence in the market.”

When I ask him how many producers he works with, he says he never counts them, but later texts to say it’s 132.

“My list is very dynamic; there is always something new in or something that we don’t have in stock.”

He says he likes to call his producers “artists”.

“I don’t want to use the term ‘natural’ because of preconceptions, so let’s say they are low- and no-intervention artisan wines. The public attitude has changed towards them over the years dramatically; it’s a completely different market now.”

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He reckons the change began during the recession, when Irish people emigrated and were exposed to wines in other markets.

“When they moved back, I started to get loads of young people calling me and saying, ‘Oh, you import that wine’. That was a turning point for me.”

He also sees the food scene having “improved dramatically” over the past 15 years. “Dublin now is one of the places in Europe where you can get some of the best restaurants. The average is very high.”

Does he have any intention of moving back to Italy? “Well, I go back regularly now. I had a nomadic childhood so since then, I love having roots. When I go to Italy, I’m very happy for the first week. By the second week I’m already saying to myself, ‘There are too many Italians here for me and so I need to fly back to Dublin’. So one foot in each country – that is the perfect situation for me. But really Ireland is home for me.”

Terry Pennington of Santa Rita Estates

Terry Pennington is commercial export director of Santa Rita Estates in Europe. As well as Santa Rita wines (which includes Sauvignon 120, the best-selling wine in Ireland), his portfolio contains Viña Carmen from Chile and Doña Paula from Argentina. Pennington has a relaxed and avuncular disposition and is universally popular in the wine trade.

Originally from England, he came to Ireland in May 1991 to work for a SuperValu franchisee, running a branch in Deansgrange in Dublin as well as some other outlets.

“When I started, he had six shops and when I finished, he had one – so obviously I did a super job,” he jokes.

Pennington came from a family hospitality business background, starting work in 1982. “Then, after school, I was started with specialist supermarket group Booths in the north of England, first in management training. Then I got into wine buying. In 1986 I set up a small business – a wine bar and wine import business. I did that for four years before coming here to Ireland.”

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After his SuperValu stint, Pennington joined the company Woodford Bourne-Robert Roberts as wine director before moving to Gilbeys in 2001. When Gilbeys was sold in 2010, he moved to Santa Rita and has covered, at different times, Asia, Africa, Europe (and the Middle East) as well as Ireland and Britain.

“When I arrived, there was nobody walking around the streets with cups of coffee, energy drinks didn’t really exist; how and where people consume drinks has changed radically from the pubs to cafes and similar outlets,” says Pennington. He looks back on the 1990s as an exciting period for wine, as tastes and the range of producers on offer expanded.

“You could find good wines in restaurants at manageable prices and a vibrant independent trade. I remember sourcing not only regional Australian growers, South Africa, Bordeaux and the Rhône, but a range of funky Californian producers that in the 2000s disappeared when financial prudence took a grip.”

He has fond memories of enjoying “inspiring” wines such as Zind Humbrecht Pinot Gris and DRC La Tache and verticals of Clos de Tart “before pricing was multiplied”.

“Santa Rita Casa Real could be bought at less than £20 punts (it now costs €100-plus) and cutting-edge wine like Sean Thackry Pleaides were affordable in specialist shops,” he says. “Wine education boomed and it seemed every top producer visiting London would extend their trip to Ireland. There were so many eclectic tastings.”

He has since witnessed much change, with an expansion in immigration from eastern European countries, for example, leading to bigger appetites for beer and vodka.

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“Broadly speaking, we had a surge in wine consumption in the 90s and early 2000s and then we’ve sort of hit a wall and stopped in terms of the number of bottles of wine consumed. In terms of culture, I think wine has always had a core group of enthusiasts but increasingly there are other opportunities to try and they all put a big pressure on wine,” Pennington says.

“When I started, over 50 per cent of the off-trade business was with specialists or independents and today it’s less than 10 per cent. Wine has become more commoditised. Brands − and we’re one of them − have benefited from that but I think that has also reduced some of the choice. The kind of wines that people drink has changed too; people find grape varieties easier to understand and prefer fruit-driven, easy-drinking wines.”

Pennington says he spent about 130 days on the road last year.

“I’m doing less this year, but I have to keep a very close eye on Europe. Overall, I am very happy. Moving here was the best, best thing I’ve done. I am married to a very strong and beautiful Irish woman, my family were all born and bred here, and they are similar to my wife. I have a son and four daughters, all of whom play netball – one of them plays for Ireland.”