La Kav Wines Impresses Kevin Ecock with Our New Irish Wine!

We are so thrilled that founder Arnaud Clopin was a guest on Kevin Ecock’s podcast WinePod, in early 2023. Arnaud and Kevin enjoyed a chat through the story of La Kav Wines before discussing our biggest, most ambitious project yet: the creation of a top-quality Irish wine that is grown, produced and bottled in Co. Wexford. 

A dedication to quality 

Arnaud shared the struggles of trying to grow vines in an Irish climate and his dedication to quality.

“I just want quality,” he said. “I want the Irish to be proud of their Irish wine. We don’t want to produce plonk. The best gin in the world is Irish. The best whiskey in the world is Irish. The best beef in the world, with all the World Steak Challenges, is Irish… I want to produce the best possible quality Irish wine — and I think we’ve nailed it. ”

Growing wine in Ireland is ambitious, and the climate and soil pose real challenges. Since this journey began, the La Kav Wines team has shared tears of joy when the first buds appeared, and tears of disappointment when three-year-old vines died in front of us… but we are slowly perfecting the process. Today, we are proud to have over 4,500 beautiful vines growing on our land in the south-east of Ireland and are incredibly excited to bottle our first vintage later in 2023.

Tasting our new Irish wine

With 25 years in the Irish wine trade, Kevin definitely knows his wine — so we were eager (and nervous!) to see what he thought. Luckily, he recognised that this is no gimmick — we’re only interested in creating a wine that is genuinely worth drinking, something that truly speaks to our hard work and unique Wexford terroir. “I just tasted it there,” Kevin said on the podcast episode, “and it is quality wine.”

“I always have a smile whenever I taste it,” said Arnaud, “because it’s a very fresh wine.”

“Very fresh,” agreed Kevin. “That’s the instant bouquet you get from it: a blossom freshness.”

“It reminds me of Ireland,” Arnaud continued. “You have the hedgerow, you have the lemon […] and then it turns into a bit of apple. We’re trying to get this apple pie, apple crumble, going on with the second fermentation.” 

Arnaud shared that he has already picked a name for this very special wine, due to be bottled in May, but he couldn’t be tempted to spill the beans just yet. “It still has to be approved by our La Kav Wine Gang,” he said, referring to our insiders’ group on Whatsapp. 

Once you’ve ordered wine from La Kav, you’re in the gang, with an exclusive text sent out every Sunday keeping our customers informed on our latest wine news and special offers.

“I treat my customers as I treat my friends,” said Arnaud, “and I couldn’t give bad wine to a friend.”

The first vintage

This first year, we hope to have around 700 bottles of our Wexford wine available. The bottles themselves will be sourced in Ireland and Arnaud is planning on using a shape reminiscent of a whiskey bottle to emphasise the birthplace of the wine — something similar to the Miss Valentine rosé from Provence already stocked by La Kav. “It’s very classy,” he said, “and very Irish.”

As Arnaud explains, this has been a long time in the making. It’s taken us four years to get to this stage , “but we’re getting very close”.

As Kevin writes on his WinePod website:

“When I visited Arnaud at his vineyard, the weather wasn’t as good as it was for the drone. It was winter. Have a look at what 5,000 vines in Ireland on a couple of hectares looks like. Fabulous.

Afterwards, we visited the La Kav winery in Gorey town, tasted the wine (white, fresh lemon and thyme, 11.5%, excellent) and recorded this podcast. Enjoy the story. It is unique and quite brilliant.”

Click here to listen to the full conversation, and be sure to follow us on Instagram @lakavwines to keep up to date with our Wexford wine! 

Become a customer to join our La Kav Wine Gang and be the first to hear all our news (and make sure you can get your hands on a bottle of our limited-run first vintage!).