The Barton Restaurant, K Club, Straffan Co Kildare. www.kclub.ie
Wild Kildare venison at The K Club
Today at 08:50
In a divisive world it does no harm to take part in the reunion of two old wine cultures: Ireland and France. You read it right. Ireland. Because last week the Wine Geese descendants of the Barton family came home to Kildare, not to roost but to share the wines they’ve been making for nine generations in Bordeaux’s zone A, five-star, king of the regions, le Médoc.
Waves of migrations from Ireland to France from the early 1600s, including the Flight of the Earls and the later Flight of the Wild Geese after the Battle of the Boyne, (including antecedents on my French mother’s side, the Herons) did not result in France becoming a nation of whiskey distillers. The reformation cousins took those skills to Tennessee and Kentucky.