Ireland day 0921. Saturday 06 April 2024- Lusca Wines *

Ireland day 0921. Saturday 06 April 2024- Lusca Wines

Today’s summary	While Val was working at the museum I drove up to visit Llewellyn’s vineyard and winery in Lusk. Amazing friendly place. Came away with 4 bottles and a much lighter wallet. Went for lunch at Ardgillan then Val and I went on a short walk round Malahide in the evening.
Today’s weather	Storm Kathleen was passing through which made it windy and very mild today. Occasional sun, some showers and gale force southerly wind. Appx 14c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Ardgillan after Lusca Winery

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

The other day it crossed my mind to wonder if there was such a thing as Irish wine. It seemed pretty unlikely to me but this morning I thought I’d do some googling anyway.

Much to my surprise I discovered that Irish wine does exist and even more remarkably there was a vineyard and winery only 20 minutes drive away from us, near the town of Lusk.

So as soon as we had finished breakfast and Val had headed off to the museum for a day at work, I thought I would get the car out and go and pay it a visit.

Llewellyn’s Orchard is a pretty modest looking place – there’s no sign to give away its location, so you have to know where you are going. But once you find it, it’s a charming place and David Llewellyn, the proprietor and chief winemaker, is friendly and happy to chat for ages about how his wines are made, and about the challenges of growing vines in Ireland.

He specialises in reds – which was quite a surprise, considering the climate – and sparkling white wines. I had a modest wine tasting of two of the reds and in the end came away with a Merlot, a Rondo, a bottle of sparkling wine, and some perry. It wasn’t cheap but it tasted pretty good and we are both looking forward to finishing off a bottle at the earliest possible opportunity.

As soon as the shopping was completed, I drove a little further up the road to get some lunch at Ardgillan followed by a stroll around the demesne.

Once back in Malahide and when Val had returned from work, we went on a short walk, had dinner then I made packed lunches for tomorrow before settling down to a bit of TV.

Quite a remarkable day all round, really.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


In the winery – it’s a bit of a one-man-band and the main warehouse is a real Aladdin’s Cave	Lunch! Very healthy, I know.

Ardgillan House – the restorations have been finished and it looks very nice now. A bit blowy today	Colourful primulas in the copse by the entrance

I couldn’t resist going in the greenhouse and pretending once again that I was in the Mediterranean. The perfume of the jasmine was actually quite overpowering in the enclosed space of the greenhouse so I didn’t stay in there very long	In the next door greenhouse, a lime bush was just coming into flower. A beautiful smell, and less overpowering than the jasmine

The winery. The Rondo grapes are to the right and will ripen outdoors. The Merlot grapes need slightly warmer conditions to ripen properly so are growing in the polytunnel to the left