Ripe for the picking? Irish wine on the up - but it is a labour of love

Heard the one about Irish wine? Like its English counterpart, it is no longer a joke, with more than a dozen vineyards now producing bottles to emulate those of the terroirs of France, Spain and Italy.

- Lisa O'Carroll

At about €60 (£50) a bottle and produced in small quantities, it is far from a commercial activity, but efforts over the last 10 years have produced what one retailer described as an "arguably very fine" rosé.

Global heating was pushing the viability of grape ripening northwards, said Kees van Leeuwen, a professor of viticulture at Bordeaux University and the co-author of a paper on the climate crisis and wine production.

Paul Moore, a climatologist at Met Éireann, said conditions for growing grapes had become "more favourable" in Ireland in the last 30 years.

Research comparing the 30 years between 1961 and 1990 and the period from 1991 to 2020 showed days getting warmer and nights even more so, reducing the prospect of late frosts that damage buds and roots.

"The mean temperature overall for Ireland has increased by 0.7 of a degree Celsius," Moore said, while rainfall had increased by 7% over the same period and the growing season had increased by seven to 16 days.