Two great table wines from a family with port pedigree
The Symington family is one of the most successful English/Portuguese producers of port, with a portfolio that includes Graham's, Warre's, Dow's, Cockburn's and Quinta do Vesuvio. They also produce table
wines
made from the same vineyards in the Douro valley, but much lower in alcohol.
As well as these two, O'Briens has the excellent Altano Rewilding Red 2.5-litre Bag in Box for €36.95 and the equally good Altano Organic Red for €18.95 a bottle.
[
Is wine from the United States good?
]
Altano Branco 2022, Symington, Douro
Altano Branco 2022, Symington, Douro
13.5% €15.95 down to €12.50 from O'Briens
Medium-bodied with attractive peach fruits and good fresh acidity. Enjoy with grilled sardines, mackerel and other oily fish.
Altano Tinto 2022, Symington, Douro
Altano Tinto 2022, Symington, Douro
13.5% €15.95 down to €12.50 from O'Briens
Smooth, rich dark fruits with a spicy note. Plenty of flavour and a pleasure to drink. Try it with a barbecued burger or roast red meats.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Some local authorities inspecting ‘just 10%' of new builds for compliance with safety regulations
Enforcement of building safety regulations in Ireland is a 'key weakness', with inspections of new developments varying among local authorities, some of whom inspect 'virtually none', a construction conference has heard. The Construction Bar Association annual conference heard on Friday that local authorities require greater resources to ensure compliance with building safety regulations. Deirdre Ní Fhloinn, a barrister specialising in construction law, said statistics of historical building defects in Ireland do not suggest there were a 'few bad eggs in the industry' but instead, there was a 'systemic problem'. She cited a 2022 report that found that up to 100,000 of the 125,000 apartments built between 1991 and 2013 had defects concerning fire safety, water ingress issues or structural safety issues. READ MORE The total cost of repairing the homes is estimated to be in the billions, with Ms Ní Fhloinn saying the taxpayer has become the 'insurer of last resort for building defects'. Noting that rules and regulations were adequate at the time of their construction, Ms Ní Fhloinn said enforcement was a 'huge part' of the problem. Speaking on the value of 'robust regulation', she welcomed the fact that Government approval has been received to draft a general scheme to establish a Building Standards Regulatory Authority. She said about a quarter of new buildings are being inspected by local authorities, adding that this figure itself is inflated by larger authorities that inspect upwards of 70 to 80 per cent of new buildings. On the other hand, some authorities are inspecting 'virtually none', she said. Property developer Michael O'Flynn, meanwhile, said building control regulations in Ireland have 'great standards' but agreed enforcement of the regulations was a 'key weakness'. Inspection levels vary significantly among local authorities, he said, with some inspecting just 10 per cent of new buildings. 'There is no huge shortage of existing regulation, the question is, is it happening? Are people doing what they're supposed to be doing?' 'Local authorities are inspecting, unfortunately, a very low percentage. There has to be a consistent standard,' he said, adding that resourcing and upskilling is a must to ensure adequate enforcement. Mr O'Flynn added that there is currently no balance between regulation and planning, saying the Irish planning system was suffering from an 'existing enormous backlog'. He cited 2023 figures in which 22,000 housing planning applications were caught in a backlog in An Bord Pleanála , which had an average waiting time of 79 weeks. He described waiting times generally as 'quite frightening' and a 'really serious issue'. 'Our planning system is in a very bad place,' he said. 'We can't ignore these things, because if we do, we will continue to fail a generation of people who are unable to buy homes,' he said.
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
House raffles are a big, beautiful, awful sign of the times
'There are days I am still in disbelief that it happened and it actually happened to me. I don't want to say I believe in miracles, but I always try and give it a go to see what happens. I'm over the moon,' delighted homeowner Imelda Collins told The New York Times this week. The miracle she had experienced was not, although you might be forgiven for making the assumption in this broken housing market of ours, managing to buy a house , but succeeding in selling one. Collins's joy becomes a bit easier to understand when you see the figures involved. A two-bedroom cottage on 1.75 acres in Leitrim which she bought three years ago for €133,000 and spent €147,000 restoring has just grossed her €1.2 million. She did this by selling it in an online raffle hosted by a UK-based company, shifting 206,815 tickets priced at €5.92 a pop. The €1.2 million doesn't go straight into her pocket – there were marketing costs of €25,000 along the way, €2,600 in affiliate fees, and she has agreed to pay the winner's stamp duty and legal fees as part of the prize. Raffall, the lottery agent she chose (there are several based in the UK, where the raffles are classed as 'prize competitions'), takes 10 per cent. Then there's 33 per cent capital gains tax. READ MORE She had hoped to net €400,000 after costs on a house she reckons is worth €300,000. Instead, she'll walk away with over half a million – more than enough to fund her planned move to Italy. Collins is so thrilled by her success, she's considering abandoning plans to teach English and become a full-time internet marketer. The winner, Kathleen Spangler, a 29-year-old US marine corps officer, is ecstatic too. Coincidentally, as she told The New York Times, she applied for her Irish citizenship through lineage on her father's side last year. Raffall must also be chuffed with its 10 per cent. And even the losers are only out by €6 each. This can be read two ways: as the a heart-warming tale of a clever woman using her entrepreneurial flair and marketing skills to shift a house in Leitrim for four times its value and simultaneously making a young family's dreams come true. And no one really loses out; at least, not by very much. Or – miserable killjoy that I am, the way I can't help reading it – as a bleak statement about the housing dystopia we are experiencing. House raffles are a big, beautiful, awful idea. Their popularity is a grim reflection on a property market in which your best prospect of owning a house may well be to win one in a lottery. In 1984, George Orwell wrote about the lottery run by the Ministry of Plenty as a way of preventing 'the proles' from dwelling on the misery of their existence. 'It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant.' [ How to give yourself the best chance of buying a home amid Ireland's housing crisis Opens in new window ] If the odds of today's house lotteries are not as small as in Orwell's world, where the largest prizes do not exist at all, they're still less than spectacular. The majority of houses put up for raffle do not meet the minimum threshold of ticket sales. Raffall's founder and chief executive Stelios Kounou told The New York Times that 18 houses have been sold so far on the platform, while 50 others did not make their target. House lotteries may feel like a contemporary antidote to a modern affliction, but they are not a new idea – though the last time they got this level of attention might also have been the last time decent housing was this difficult to access in Ireland. In 1948, a giant house raffle was held in Dublin by the government of the day, when families on the social housing list were offered a chance to win one of between 220 and 250 brand new houses in Ballyfermot, according to historian Cathy Scuffil, who says there were lines of prams up and down Dawson Street. 'Every time somebody's name was called out, a big cheer would go up,' she said. Occasional 'newly wed draws' were held up to the 1970s for recently married couples on the housing list in Dublin. As a means of getting on the housing ladder, it probably beats bidding against wealthy Americans on a cottage in Leitrim. Today's house lotteries often inspire scepticism online, though, unlike in Orwell's dark vision, the prizes are real – a house if enough tickets are sold, a pile of cash if they're not. That is a fairly big qualifier. If the minimum number of tickets are not sold, the owner can cancel the raffle and keep 40 per cent of the funds and the house, giving 50 per cent of the cash to the winning ticket holder. Or they can give the house away anyway and keep more of the money. In Collins's case, if she had not met her goal of 150,000 tickets, she planned to give 40 per cent to the winner. [ Dolores McNamara: Whatever happened to the €115m lotto winner? Opens in new window ] On Raffall right now, you can buy a ticket for a semi-d in Yorkshire, apparently being raffled for the second time ('after the previous winner received the alternative huge cash prize option'), a villa with a pool in the Algarve or a beachfront villa on the island of Samui. Presumably most sellers are well-meaning people who want to try to pay off their mortgage, but it is not terribly difficult to imagine someone unscrupulous setting a wildly unrealistic ticket sales target – and pocketing 40 per cent of the cash when they don't make it. Still, browsing the listings, it's hard for even this sceptical prole to resist the temptation to splurge €6 on a ticket or two.
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
Does Ireland's hospitality sector really need a VAT cut?
Tánaiste Simon Harris may yet come to regret the elevation of a manifesto commitment to cut the rate of VAT charged on hospitality to the level of 'solemn promise' as he did this week at the National Economic Dialogue. Manifesto commitments can be discarded quite easily, especially when part of a coalition. Solemn promises not so much. The already tenuous argument for promoting the needs of the hospitality sector over all the other Budget Day supplicants can only get weaker as the summer unfolds and the twin threats to the global economy of Donald Trump's tariffs and the conflict between Israel and Iran unfold. The idea is strenuously opposed by the Department of Finance which came out against it in the run-up to last year's budget. Officials noted that it represented an 'enormous fiscal transfer of taxpayers' money to the sector which the evidence available at present does not support'. READ MORE Their opposition is unlikely to waver this time around. The central plank of their argument – that employment and prices in the sector are growing strongly despite a number of high-profile restaurant closures – remains robust. The Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of the year was published last month. It showed that the numbers working in accommodation and food services activity – which is seen as the relevant category for hospitality – reached 186,000, up almost 7 per cent on the first quarter of 2024. The most recent inflation figures – for last May – show that restaurant and hotel prices are rising faster than prices in the economy as a whole. They rose by 2.8 per cent over the past 12 months compared with 1.7 per cent for the consumer price index overall. The department will no doubt point to the continuation of the trend of rising employment levels and falling prices in the sector despite the levying of the standard VAT rate when the issue comes up for discussion over the summer But the indications are that their entreaties will fall on deaf ears and the Government will be swayed by industry lobbying rather than hard facts at a cost of €790 million to taxpayers.
