Extreme wealth has tended to prompt a passion for cars, yachts or racehorses. If you’re a modern multimillionaire, however, you might be tickled by the idea of a drink with your name on it. Better still, why not acquire a winery to call your own?
Ireland has a few famous businesspeople — modern incarnations of the historic wine geese — who have done just that.
The best known of the modern wine geese is Lochlann Quinn, owner of Château de Fieuzal in Bordeaux’s Pessac-Léognan appellation. Quinn is one of Ireland’s best known business titans and philanthropists, whose oenophile credentials were established by his holding of a stake in the wine merchant Findlater before it was acquired by C&C Group.
Quinn bought the estate in 2001 for a reported £36 million and has maintained and arguably improved its already stellar name. Its wines were rated as “cru classé” in the 1959 Graves classification and, curiously, as good as the red is, the white has a slightly higher reputation. I’ve tasted many vintages of each over the decades and both always deliver and compete well with their peers; that is to say, a rating of 91-93 for the red and a point or two more for the white. Prices for the latest releases are about €55-€70 for the red and €60-€80 for the white.
Château de Fieuzal Blanc 2021, Pessac-Léognan, 12.5%, €60-€80, Pembroke Wines, Roly’s Bistro shop
A gorgeous barrel-aged sauvignon-sémillon blend with subtle oak spice framing grapefruit and mandarin-like fruit, underpinned by a creamy texture and terrific length. 95/100. The 2016 red is a classy, understated claret in a classic style, quite unlike many modern blockbuster fruity Bordeaux reds. 92/100
Gay McGuinness
Most expat vineyard owners in Provence are Francophiles with a lifelong passion for wine, living the dream. Gay McGuinness does not derive, however, from central casting.
He’s a scion of a prominent Kilkenny political family, whose father, brother and nephew have all been mayor; the brother, John, is also a Fianna Fail TD and leas-cheann comhairle. Oh, and his artist daughter, Yvonne, is married to the actor Cillian Murphy.
Gay eschewed politics for business and ran a transport logistics company in Britain, where a customer, Domaine des Anges in Ventoux, ran up some debts. Gay visited and was taken with the place, buying a parcel with a partner, and then eventually all of it in the late 1980s, buying out the partner in 1990. The estate has the Rhône’s classic red and white varieties with the addition of cabernet sauvignon. Anges means angels in French and its premium wines take the name of a type of angel, hence Archange, or archangel. The regular wines are fine, but the limited-production “angel” wines are very good, winning medals including golds at the Decanter World Wine Awards.
Domaine des Anges Archange Blanc 2022, 13%, €20-30. Morton’s of Ranelagh, Grogan & Brown, Kilkenny
A barrel-fermented Roussanne-led blend that I think fans of good white burgundy will love. 90/100
Murtagh Family
Eugene Murtagh founded the Kingspan Group, now valued at over €12 billion, in Cavan in the 1960s. Today it’s run by his son Gene, one of five siblings including Naomi. She and her husband, Andrew Eakin, a fellow Cavan native, own two Bordeaux properties in the Blaye appellation — Château Puynard and Château Magdeleine Bouhou — and installed a microdistillery called Two Origins in the latter. The really clever part, though, is that they also own four award-winning Bottle Apostle wine shops, in London hipster hot spots such Primrose Hill and Crouch End, through which they sell their wines.
Curiously, neither had a background in the drinks industry. Andrew’s was in car sales, while Naomi’s was in fashion, but they became interested enough in wine to start taking courses, and opened their first store in 2009 in Victoria Park Village in Hackney. A fascination with wine evolved into a desire to make some, and they bought Puynard in 2016 and Magdeleine Bouhou in 2021.
Château Puynard The Steps 2020, Blaye, 13.5%, €21.99, The Grapevine, Dublin 9
The estate’s top cuvée is a merlot-led blend showing classic plum and blackcurrant fruit with light vanilla oak notes and subtle tannin giving structure and length. 89/100
Paddy McKillen
The Belfast native Paddy McKillen has had a colourful career, encompassing roles as entrepreneur, property magnate, former Nama litigant, hotelier, vineyard owner, reality TV star during the Claridge’s refurbishment, and art collector.
Some vineyards add a gîte and a tasting room in an attempt to make ends meet. In the case of McKillen’s Château La Coste in Provence, that would be like comparing a cruise ship to a dinghy. Alongside the vines the 200 hectare estate has a luxury boutique hotel, six restaurants and an art and architecture park that includes a Frank Gehry music pavilion, a Richard Rogers gallery and pieces by Tracey Emin, Bob Dylan, Renzo Piano, Yoko Ono and many, many more.
With that kind of statement backdrop, the wines had better be good — and thankfully they are. The estate makes red, white and rosé but, as it’s Aix-en-Provence, inevitably much of the spotlight is on the rosés.
Château La Coste Lady A Rosé, 13%, €20, winestation.ie
The butterfly motif on the bottle is by Damien Hirst, naturally, and the wine, with its crunchy pomegranate, strawberry and peachlike fruit, is a delight, if not a masterpiece. 90/100. The Grand Vin rosé, at €33, comes closer to that. 93/100
The O’Connor family
Eddie O’Connor was that rare thing: a highly successful entrepreneur who wanted to help create a more sustainable world. He founded the wind farm development company Eirtricity (later Airtricity) in 1997. After it was sold in 2008, he co-founded Mainstream Renewable Power, with solar and wind assets around the globe, and in 2018 he innovated once more by founding SuperNode, a technology company specialising in superconducting cable systems.
O’Connor was bitten by the wine bug and in 2023 purchased Château Tour des Termes, a cru bourgeois supérieur estate in Bordeaux’s St Estèphe. It was already a well-regarded estate, but plans were put in place to take it to a higher level with a carbon-neutral winery and tasting facility and a rejuvenation of the vineyards, including creating a new white wine — a rare enough thing in that district. O’Connor died about six months after the purchase but the torch was taken up by his widow, Hildegarde, and their children, who are committed to completing his vision.
Château Tour des Termes 2016, St Estèphe, 14%, €50, Pembroke Wines
A classic médoc nose featuring black fruits, graphite and a touch of tobacco, echoed on the palate that has enough tannin to give structure and length. 90/100
Dining and Cooking