Potager in Skerries has the Best Short Wine List in Ireland 2024
Skerries restaurant Potager has won a Gold Star for the Best Short Wine List in Ireland at the 2024 Star Wine List of the Year Ireland awards.
The award was presented by Kelly Stevenson, UK Brand Ambassador for the category’s sponsor, Château d’Esclans.
“I think it's a really big award to win,” said Stevenson on the night. “Creating a short wine list is almost more difficult than creating the biggest wine list because you really have to be particular about what you choose – you have to edit, you have to make sure that you're making the right decision for guests coming into your establishment but, most of all, you have to let some wines go. And there's so many wonderful wines out there, so you know that, on a short wine list, the wines that you're getting are the absolute very best.”
Accepting the Gold Star was Potager’s owner Sarah Ryan and sommelier Maire McHugh, who explained how the wine list is created: “Our menu is very seasonal, it's a tasting menu, it changes very frequently, so the wines are reflective of that. It's not very heavy foods so we don't have a lot of big, powerful red wines on our list for that reason – they just don't really work with our food. So it's very much thinking about the food but also thinking about our customers as well – I want to make sure that people have wine that you can't just buy in the supermarket, or something a bit different, something that is similar to grapes they might know. So that's where it comes from.”
Ryan added that it was “lovely” to take the award home, since “we're a super small restaurant, really small team, and some of the other guys [nominated] are much bigger places – much bigger wine staff and programs.”
The judges had praised the structure of Potager’s list during their deliberations: “it is well organised and fun!” said Valerie Gamper. “You can tell it has been curated down to the smallest detail. There are options for all palates and budgets, including a wide variety of styles and regions, indigenous grapes and niche producers. Nothing seems to have been left to chance. Loved it!”
Runners up
Silver Stars for the Best Short List were awarded to:
D'Olier Street Restaurant, Dublin
Daróg Wine Bar, Galway
Etto, Dublin
Green Man Wines, Dublin
UNioN Wine, Bar & Kitchen, Waterford
Variety Jones, Dublin
Woodruff, Dublin
Expert jury
The judging panel for Star Wine List of the Year Ireland comprised three international wine experts.
• Reeze Choi, third-best Sommelier of the World 2023 (ASI)
• Julie Dupouy-Young, four-time Best Sommelier of Ireland
• Valeria Gamper, Best Sommelier of the Americas 2022 (ASI)
Categories and criteria
Star Wine List judges the wine lists in several categories such as the Best Sparkling Wine List and Best By the Glass List. These categories are the same across all of the awards. In addition, local categories may be added. We have commercial partners for certain categories, such as the Best Austrian Wine List, presented by Austrian Wine. The commercial partners are, however, never involved in the selections of finalists or winners — that is completely up to our independent jury panel.
The criteria for the jury are straightforward but not simple: vote for the most exciting wine list representing the category.
The winners in the international categories will qualify for our International Final in June 2025, where they will face off with the category winners from other countries and continents.
Read about the terms and how Star Wine List judges the wine lists here.
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