Kevin Ecock's WinePod Kevin Ecock

Kevin Glastonbury, affectionately known as KG, is Senior Red Winemaker at Yalumba in the Barossa Valley of South Australia.
The Barossa is one the world's premier red wine making regions and Yalumba one of its most respected wineries.

Back in 2019 we had the honour here on the podcast to chat with Yalumba owner (Barossa legend) Robert Hill-Smith. (Listen Back HERE) His family has owned and operated Yalumba for over 170 years!
The Hill-Smiths are proud members of Australia's First Families of Wine, have pioneered Viognier beyond what anyone thought possible and brings us The Caley one of finest expressions of red wine making anywhere. 

In this podcast recorded in Dalkey at the Grapevine and hosted by Irish agents Cassidy Wines KG brings us on a Barossa journey where Winemaking, Barrel Making, Sunshine, Skill and History combine to bring us special wines.
It's a great story. Enjoy.

Riedel has a special place in the world of wine. It is one of Respect for a family that has worked tirelessly to perfect how we can further our ability to taste many types of drink but especially that of wine.
Riedel stemware is known the world over as being completely brilliant. It is also a family that firmly believes in designing and producing glassware to perfectly suit individual grape and wine styles.

To emphasise this Maximilian Riedel spends a lot of his time touring the world with a quite fabulous roadshow. At these he presents, through interactive tastings, how to capture the very best from a wine by using the appropriate Riedel wine glass.

Recently Maximilian commanded the attention of an Irish audience of many hundreds (both wine professionals and consumers alike). His presentation was brilliant. His glassware memorable.

The result is that Riedel and Respect are intertwined by Quality and Brilliance.
 
Enjoy our podcast recorded while Maximilian was in Dublin.
The Riedel Wine Glass and Decanter Collections are distributed in Ireland through Mitchell and Son and by Hospitality Products.

Last year we were very fortunate to have had a zoom podcast chat with Dave Phinney and the remarkable wines he has created, most notably under the Orin Swift label. Dave is a very busy man!

So how cool was it to meet him in person in London and spend a further 30 minutes chatting. Very cool indeed!

Orin Swift is one of the great wines from the Napa Valley in  California. Fruit expression in Orin Swift has been elevated to an art form. Just as well then that the labels Dave Phinney designs are among the funkiest and most personal in the world of wine.
Orin Swift wines are collectable, age worthy and very, very drinkable.

Enjoy our latest chat with one of the really great wine maker personalities.
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Many thanks to the team at E&J Gallo who made this visit possible, to Dave Phinney for his generosity and wines and also to Ireland agents Pembroke Wines (to whom I continue to apologise for accidently blocking them in my WhatsApp!)

I met Olly Nolan at the Gifted Fair in the RDS last Christmas. He was showing a range of honeys. I was captivated. Each honey had a captivating scent. Intoxicating even.  Olly's Farm Dublin Honey had taken me prisoner!

Wine, Tea, Honey, Whiskey, Stout, and on and on can only stand out as being exceptional if they attack our senses in a visceral way. This should be immediate, lasting and memorable. I just had to find out more about Olly's Farm.

I paid Olly a visit recently and we recorded in his Honey House up on the edge of the Dublin hills. What a view!

My knowledge of bee keeping and honey production is, to be honest, rudimentary to the point of being non existent. Thanks must be given to Olly for guiding me through the process and a lot more besides. Choosing to live the life of a small holding farmer on the edge of Dublin city is not for the faint hearted. That said Olly Nolan has made a fabulous success with limited resources. 
Olly's Farm Honey is among the very best tasting products on sale today. Enjoy.
The Honey House
 

In this podcast we talk with Zoltán Heimann whose family, HEIMANN & FIAI, has a long and distinguished history of quality winemaking in the southern Hungarian wine region of Szekszárd - on the border between the Large Hungarian Plain and the beginnings of the Transdanubian Hills.

Zoltán likes to refer to himself as the 'Kadarka Man'.  After this tasting and podcast I'll always be in his debt as knowing my Kekfrankos from my Kadarkas! Each grape is brilliant. Each is unique and completely different to one another. 

This podcast was recorded at The Lodge at Ashford Castle where Zoltán gave a masterclass food and wine matching meal the night previous. At the tasting we progressed from Village (Szekszárd) to Single Vineyards (Bati Kereszt and Baranya-volgy) to Szivem (a parcel selection wine from Baranya-volgy).
These are wines to explore and to support. Really excellent. 

The Lodge at Ashford Castle : A Red Carnation Hotel

It's a sobering thought to many winemakers that they work at companies and enterprises that, in many cases, are younger than they are themselves! For those lucky enough to work in wineries where age and tradition has seen decades upon decades of continual success they might only contribute to a very limited number of vintages. 

It is very unusual that a family can trace its lineage back over 250 harvests. That's a very big number. 1772 - Captain Cook sets sail to find the Anti Arctic: Rutherford discovers Nitrogen gas: The American Revolution begins: The Boscaini family gather in grapes for the first time in the Vaio dei Masi, a little valley in the heart of the Valpolicella Classico region, northern Italy.

Yes, Masi Agricola by the Boscaini family celebrated its 250th harvest last year.
There were events across the world as MASI is one of the greatest names in the world of wine. We were treated to a celebratory dinner at Glovers Alley by Andy McFadden. Giacomo Boscaini opened and poured for us a special label  Vajo dei Masi 1997 double magnum produced to honour the 2022 celebrations.

In this podcast, recorded in Dublin at last years' celebration, Giacomo Boscaini brings us on the journey that his family continues to travel. It's been a long and extraordinary time and a story with many more vintages to come.
ENJOY.
 
Looking forward to visiting our signed bottle in Valpolicella one day! The MASI portfolio of labels is represented and distributed in Ireland by the Findlater & Co.