Did Chardonnay ever go away and, if so, is it now making a comeback? If the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) crowd were merely trying to get us to try out a few other grape varieties, they have certainly succeeded. In turn the BTC (Back to Chardonnay) party, of which I am a paid-up member, was merely pointing out that Chardonnay produces some of the world’s greatest white and sparkling wines. I hope we can all agree that good Chardonnay is great and the bad stuff is awful and move on a little in the debate.

Talking to importers of New World wine I get the distinct impression Chardonnay never really went away; there is a large swathe of wine drinkers who have continued to buy it even if all of the noise was about Sauvignon Blanc. At the bargain-basement end there are plenty of sickly-sweet wines with very pumped-up, confected flavours, but at €10-€15 you can find plenty of well-made, crisp, dry and fruity Chardonnay from every part of the globe.

If you need convincing, try Aldi’s Lot 2 Chardonnay (€12.99) from Tasmania, a fresh crisp dry wine, made by Wakefield, one of the leading estates of Australia. The New World has learned that masses of new oak and rich buttery wines are not always what the public wants. If anything the criticism is that some have gone too far the other direction, offering us wines stripped of all flavour and character.

Today I concentrate on Australia and New Zealand, which have had very different relationships with Chardonnay. Both now appear to be making world-beating wines made from this variety. At one time Australian Chardonnay was big and brash; how times have changed. Now the best wines come from the cooler regions: the Mornington Peninsula and the Yarra Valley, both near Melbourne, and Tasmania all produce some excellent wines as can the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and parts of Western Australia, the Margaret River in particular.

New Zealand has been hugely successful with Sauvignon Blanc, but we have seen precious little Chardonnay in Ireland. That may be about to change. New Zealand is making some excellent Chardonnay, often in regions responsible for the best Pinot Noir, such as Martinborough, Waipara and Central Otago, although Neudorf in Nelson and Kemeu River up north are two of the best.

The best Chardonnay I tasted on a visit to New Zealand earlier this year was the 2013 Ata Rangi Craighall Chardonnay. This will arrive in Ireland shortly. A close second was a Puligny-like Felton Road 2013. James Nicholson has something of an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Chardonnay; they are waiting for their allocation of Felton Road Chardonnay, but in the meantime customers can try the excellent Neudorf from Nelson and the Dog Point from Marlborough. I would also love to see Pegasus Bay return; they make some fantastic Chardonnay

What should you look for in a top Chardonnay? The best are nuanced yet sumptuous wines, medium-bodied with a lightly creamy texture, possibly with a hint of spicy oak, but never to the exclusion of fruits – green apple in cool climates moving through to pears and then peaches in warmer regions. Chardonnay coats the entire mouth with flavour. The three wines selected this week are all expensive. But then their equivalents from Burgundy would certainly match them for price, if not make them look reasonable.

I know some wine drinkers are reluctant to spend money on white wine, possibly because they see it as something to sip with a starter before moving on to the main course. I tend to save my best white wines, usually a Chardonnay or Riesling, for those times when I am cooking really good fish or chicken as a main course – black sole drenched in butter, turbot, and of course salmon paired with a top-notch Chardonnay will turn dinner into a real feast.

Ireland’s craft brewers received a deserved boost from the Minister for Finance a few years back when he granted them a 50 per cent rebate on excise duty. This allows smaller brewers to compete with the larger producers on a relatively even playing field. The results speak for themselves; the number of small craft breweries has shot up. However, our craft cider producers are currently excluded from this, and are therefore at a huge disadvantage to other similar drinks. Real cider is, like wine, fermented rather than brewed, and therein lies the problem.

Under EU law, the minister cannot simply lower the duty on fermented products. However cider is taxed in two bands, over 2.8 per cent alcohol and over 6 per cent alcohol. The Government could lower the current (extortionate) higher rate of duty; at the moment in a good vintage, such as 2014, a cider will ferment naturally to about 7 per cent. I would have thought this group was even more deserving than our craft brewers.

This is exactly the kind of business the Government should be helping; they are rurally based, use locally grown produce (genuine cider is made from 100 per cent Irish apples) and can substitute their cider for imported products. They may rescue many of our orchards with their unique stock of heritage apples. Let us hope the minister extends the lower duty rate in his next budget. In addition to this, while restaurants are permitted to serve bottled beer to those eating a meal, only those with a full on-licence can offer cider. Again it appears we are discriminating against our indigenous producers. Surely this too should be changed.

Changing tack, if you are getting married this summer, why not serve something Irish alongside, or instead of wine? Three of the more enterprising Irish producers now offer their ciders in very smart-looking 75cl bottles, perfectly suited for larger events. Throw in a few Irish beers and some genuine local apple juice for those not drinking alcohol, and you have a thoroughly Irish occasion. You could even finish off the evening by offering a glass of the excellent Longueville House apple brandy as well as whiskey.

James O’Donoghue of Longways produces an elderflower frizzante cider with summer celebrations in mind. James had been supplying a very large local cider producer with apples for 18 years before starting up his own cider-making business. His partner is John Maher, who worked as product development manager with C&C. Their aim, says James, was “to give it a taste profile similar to that of white wine”. They couldn’t get the flavours they were looking for from pure cider, but came across a locally produced elderflower extract. This was added to the cider once fermentation had finished. “It was quite amazing the change it brought to the product,” according to James. Craigies and Cockagee have been featured here before.

Angus Craigie and Simon Tyrrell started with the more traditionally styled Ballyhook Flyer, which has won many fans among more seasoned cider drinkers. The Dalliance is made in a very different style, lighter and fresher; the latest vintage is the best so far.

Mark Jenkinson has been producing his wonderful unique Cockagee for a few years, using traditional varieties grown in Meath. This keeved cider is naturally carbonated, unfiltered with a natural sweetness. I frequently enjoy cider with food but any of these three would make a very different and enjoyable drink to have at your wedding. Two craft cider producers also make other apple-based products. David Llewellyn makes a cider vinegar and an excellent balsamic cider vinegar, in addition of course to Irish wine – the current 2013 vintage is his best yet. Con Traas of The Apple Farm, who makes some of the best apple-based soft drinks, has a beautifully presented living culture Irish Cider Vinegar that tastes amazing.

We all have a creative instinct and mine tends towards things that I can place in my mouth. Over the years, I have tried my hand at various cheeses, yoghurts, kefirs, sausages, hams, kimchis, preserved lemons, chutneys, marmalade, salt-pickled cucumbers, cabbage, radishes and various other edibles.

More recently, I have turned to drink. While researching Irish gin, I came across a blog in the Guardian by writer and forager Andy Hamilton that included recipes for gin and for tonic water. Hamilton began foraging at the age of eight, inspired by the Australian television series Bush Tucker Man, making chickweed salad, and then nettle soup for his parents. He started making alcoholic drinks as a student. “I made a load of elderflower champagne, 180 litres. It lasted a year and half and I ended up hating it. But it set me on the road to making my own booze.” Author of Booze for Free, and Brewing Britain, Hamilton is now experimenting with cocktails made from foraged herbs, flowers and weeds which will feature in his forthcoming book Wild Booze and Hedgerow Cocktails – you can help fund this through his fascinating blog, theotherandyhamilton.com.

Hamilton says that making your own booze is easy and great fun. “I start out with existing cocktails and ingredients and try to make my own versions, substituting with foraged stuff where possible. I wanted to make my own Campari, but there is one ingredient only grown in the Caribbean; I am currently looking for an alternative. I have been making my own vermouth for a while. It seems complicated, as you have to infuse about 10 different things, but actually it’s really easy. I’ll make it up by grabbing a bottle of wine and add a few infused spirits – I have at least 10 on the go at any time. It sounds pretentious, but it is my flavour library.”

His favourite drink at the moment is gin flavoured with foraged Alexanders, although he is also adding sage to a few things at the moment – “just put it in vodka for a real toffee flavour”, he suggests. He even made his own Buckfast recently, adding that it tasted just as bad as the genuine article.

I tried my hand at the two recipes on these pages. My own gin was easier and more successful than my tonic water. Both were a strange pale brown/yellow colour, as they had not been filtered the way commercial products are. The gin was very good, full of juniper, citrus, with a light herbal note, probably from the lavender and rosemary.

The tonic on the other hand was far too sweet for my taste. I crushed some of the allspice berries before adding them, making it too earthy and spicy. The next time I make it, I will cut down on the sugar and add less allspice.

I did, however, manage to find a very good homemade tonic. I came across Claire Davey of the America Village Apothecary (americanvillage.com) in Galway through an article by John McKenna in the health section of this paper.

Not only did Claire kindly supply me with a bottle of her tonic syrup, she also sent samples of her other syrups, bitters and cocktail mixes. These are foraged where possible and sometimes seasonal too, using herbs, flowers and vegetation. Her tonic and my gin made an excellent combination, full of lively, zesty citrus underpinned by complex notes of herbs.

I also recently came across Irish forager, chef and nature guide Mary Bulfin from Co Offaly. Otherwise known as Wild Food Mary (see wildfoodmary.com), she is responsible for the delicious wild beech leaf liqueur that three of Ireland’s Michelin star restaurants now serve or use in their desserts. I enjoyed it lightly chilled as a digestif.

Caught up with the spirit of the thing, I used my second bottle of vodka to create three of my own flavoured spirits. My lemon vodka is very good, and will make an interesting addition to cocktails. The cucumber and dill has very intense, heavy cucumber flavours, and could make an interesting ingredient in gravadlax. Strangely, the dill was less obvious – I was hoping for a Danish aquavit.

These two were simple to make. Simply add the desired ingredients to the vodka in a clean Kilner jar and leave for a week or two, tasting every now and again.

Chocolate vodka has quite an online following. There are plenty of recipes that include chocolate bars, Mars being the most popular. Some suggested dishwasher vodka, made by placing a sealed bottle with chocolate or boiled sweets in the dishwasher and running a full cycle. Apparently, the heat dissolves the chocolate or sweets into the vodka.

I melted my chocolate in a bain marie, gradually adding the vodka. As I am not a fan of sweet things, I used a dark chocolate with 72 per cent cocoa solids. It tasted a bit too bitter, so I added a few teaspoonfuls of Claire Davey’s Pine Syrup No. 1, which worked very well. The result was not unlike a boozed-up chocolate sauce. I suspect it would work very well with whiskey, as proven by Baileys and various other cream liqueurs. However, I am reluctant to waste a good bottle of whiskey on the experiment.

One website suggested that I freeze the vodka. It turned solid, and on defrosting, remained a gel-like substance, not unlike a very pumped-up chocolate mousse.

Most wine people look on homemade wine with a certain distain, usually with good reason. I strongly suspect distillers will frown on my efforts in a similar way. My gin was certainly not as complex or refined as the Irish gins I featured here a few weeks ago. However, it is a delicious drink and I find it more interesting than some of the cheaper gins on the market.

Homemade gin
750ml vodka (preferably 50% ABV)
2 tablespoons juniper berries (or more if you like lots of juniper flavour in your gin)
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 tsp whole allspice
1/4 tsp coriander seeds
4 cardamom pods
2 peppercorns
1 torn bay leaf
A small sprig of lavender
A larger sprig of rosemary
Small piece of dried grapefruit peel (no pith)
Small piece of dried lemon peel (no pith)

A Mason/Kilner jar
Muslin or cheesecloth

Tonic Syrup 
Whipping up a batch of tonic water is fairly easy. The hardest part is finding all the ingredients, but a trip to a herbalist or a quick online search should furnish you with all you need.

1lt water
500g sugar
Zest and juice of 2 limes
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Zest and juice of 1 orange
28g cinchoa bark
28g citric acid
1-4 sticks of lemongrass
2-4 cardamom pods
10 allspice berries
Soda water

You will need
An accurate small scales
A large saucepan
A wooden spoon
Funnel
Small sieve
Muslin/cheesecloth
A bottle or two