About Us

Life Before Móinéir

Our adventures in life started in different countries - Pamela in Ireland and Brett in the USA, where we first met, and we have continued together since then. Our journey, like many peoples’, took a winding and often challenging route. For us it brought us from Massachusetts to Florida and the mountains of California before taking us back to Ireland with our son Shane, and daughter Celina, where we settled into the Wicklow hills.

We were involved in very different careers – Pamela with a background in engineering, was a senior executive with Airtricity, building windfarms to help in the fight against climate change. Brett was a professional audio engineer, working on films and commercials, and with a diverse array of major musical performers such as U2, Van Morrison, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eric Clapton and the San Francisco Opera.

Living in America for many years, we took a keen interest in the food world and discovered many different tastes and cultural experiences, and it was in California that we tasted our first berry wine. We loved the fresh taste and wonderful aroma that was intriguingly different to any wine we’d tasted before, yet simultaneously familiar. We learned a little about winemaking, and after returning to Ireland we set about making our own wine from the wild elderberries and blackberries growing in the meadows of the Wicklow Mountains where we live.

We learned and appreciated from our experience in the USA that wine, grown locally, and made with passion and creativity, is a wonderful and important part of the local food experience.

Móinéir is Born

We are often asked what led us to create our unique and tantalising wines. The answer is that we love Irish food and drink, and we love nature, and we bring the two together through our wines.

Grapes are relatively new to Ireland but berries have a long history and grow freely around the country. Berries are an integral and important part of Irish food culture, and have helped sustain the Irish people through the centuries. So creating our Irish wines from berries, though challenging, has been very rewarding, and feels right.

We have always shared a genuine care for the environment and a deep appreciation for the natural foods of Ireland. We've always been fascinated with nature, and with growing food and exploring the unique flavours this island offers. We’re not afraid to do things differently, or to take the path less travelled. So for us, it was a big step, but also a natural step to create our own wines, not from grapes like most wines, but from berries grown in Irish soils, and to make them as sustainable as possible. Our passion to create an excellent Irish wine continued to grow and we carried on experimenting with different berries until we felt we understood how to achieve consistent quality while letting the character of the berries come through.

We proudly launched our limited edition Strawberry Wine at Bloom 2016, and from meadow to glass, Móinéir wines reflect the unique characteristics of the Irish countryside, and are as personal and sustainable and as we can possibly make them. We hope you enjoy.