Mick O Connell of Neighbourhood Wines. Photo: Gerry Mooney
Dubliner Mick O’Connell took his studies to the infamously challenging level of Master of Wine, writing a thesis on Sardinian wine. Having moved to London with a rock band, he began learning about wine to earn better money in retailers like Oddbins and Handford Wines admitting “I always hoped that one day the music would pay for the wine”. Today, Mick owns the dynamic Neighbourhood Wine in Leeson Street (with a south county Dublin branch on the way) with importer Shane Murphy.
Among their selection of Irish-made wines you will find Mick’s own baby, a light and juicy red which he makes in Sardinia. The wine’s original name was Garnacha not Guerra, a cheeky play on ‘Cannonau’, which is the official name for Sardinia’s robust red wine made from a local type of Garnacha grape. Mick makes his in a very different style and so is not allowed to use the term Cannonau or even Garnachia as unamused officials info
Mick O Connell of Neighbourhood Wines. Photo: Gerry Mooney
Dubliner Mick O’Connell took his studies to the infamously challenging level of Master of Wine, writing a thesis on Sardinian wine. Having moved to London with a rock band, he began learning about wine to earn better money in retailers like Oddbins and Handford Wines admitting “I always hoped that one day the music would pay for the wine”. Today, Mick owns the dynamic Neighbourhood Wine in Leeson Street (with a south county Dublin branch on the way) with importer Shane Murphy.
Among their selection of Irish-made wines you will find Mick’s own baby, a light and juicy red which he makes in Sardinia. The wine’s original name was Garnacha not Guerra, a cheeky play on ‘Cannonau’, which is the official name for Sardinia’s robust red wine made from a local type of Garnacha grape. Mick makes his in a very different style and so is not allowed to use the term Cannonau or even Garnachia as unamused officials info