Lusca winery

Llewellyns Winery and Orchard

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Who would believe that Ireland is a wine producing country? Yes it is! It is actually listed as a wine producing country. The Wine architect is David Llewellyn not the Welsh novelist and script writer but the now famous Irish winemaker that created the first commercial Irish winery in Lusk. You find lusk 30 kilometers north of Dublin.

A zone with a moderate micro climate and less rain than most parts of Ireland. David makes as well the only Irish Balsamic vinegar and some astronomically sexy cider which both tastes absolutely divine. The focus for this visit was the wine. Honestly with quite a lot of skepticism I got on my flight to Ireland to visit many sites for gastronomic delights. More on TLTV! The visit to David and has orchard and winery proved to be one of the highlights. All the vines grow under plastic.. Vinification is done completely by hand and the pressing with an apple press (works like a charm) and the rest is a lot of perseverance, TLC, blood sweat and tears by David. The tears have changed into smiles... David really has created something very special. 

 

David started with with a winemaker in Germany in the 1980’s at LAke Konstance, where he became fascinated with the beauty of grapevines and the ancient noble art of winemaking,From his earlier days of experimenting with different vine varieties in the Irish climate, and trying to create palatable wine from their fruits, he began propagating vines for sale to gardeners, and eventually he decided to plant a small vineyard for the purpose of growing grapes to produce Irish wine for sale.

The Vineyard

In 2002  vineyard was planted, using quite a few different varieties of both wine and table/dessert grapes.  David and team had whittled the dessert grapes down to a couple of varieties which grow well and produce the most delicious grapes.  And they have also whittled down the wine varieties to a few which work well for us and produce consistently good wine.

The wine is called Lusca, Gaelic for Lusk, the village where the vineyard and orchard are located, means 'vault' or 'cave'. The  wine grapes consist mainly of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Dunkelfelder, and Rondo, all for red wine. Until 2013 vines of Sauvignon Blanc, Schoenburger and Gewuerztraminer for white wine, but these have been removed and replaced them with new red wine varieties. At present they have a very tiny annual production of around 500 bottles per year. With the additional vines  recently planted, that will increase to around 2,000 bottles over the next few years.

Growing the vines

All their vines are planted outdoors next to our orchard just outside the village of Lusk.  The later ripening varieties benefit from a simple cloche-type structure of metal hoops which are rigged up over the rows, whereby they are able to drape a protective polythene cover over the vines during the summer months.  This protects the fruit and foliage from rain, thus avoiding diseases, Ttherefore there is no to spray any pesticides on the vines.  It also raises the temperature under the covers which helps the late-ripening fruit to mature in our relatively cool summers. 

Vinification

The entire wine-making process is carried out in Lusk at the vineyard, from picking to pressing, fermenting, maturing and bottling. The wine is made exclusively from their own grapes and David does not buy in any additional grapes. He uses a very simple traditional method for the vinification, without the use of high-tech filters and other equipment. The wine is allowed to clear naturally, and it is all bottled and labelled by hand. 

All the  wine is fermented to natural dryness and is finished dry in the bottle, without being back-sweetened at bottling as is common practice in modern large scale wineries.  

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