"It's an exciting town. There's quite a lot of enthusiasm about wine and it's a young market here," says Briton Ben Hawkins of his adopted home Dublin where he heads up the fine wine division for Berry Bros. & Rudd.

"I look after selling blue chip wines such as back-vintages of Bordeaux to the top restaurants and private customers in Ireland, as well as selling wines to overseas markets such as Asia and the Middle East in trade and private.

"It's a young market here in the sense that there's a lot of brand-driven supermarket-influenced standardised wines from the New World from places like Chile with price points under €10 (Euro). But the average spend is probably starting to go up with people looking for more subtlety and more interesting products from the Old World as well. They're enthusiastic drinkers here and a lot of that enthusiasm has switched from the grain to the grape. People are beginning to get the idea of buying for the future as opposed to always just buying for that evening."

Berry Bros. & Rudd is Britain's oldest wine and spirit merchant, trading from the same flagship shop in London for more than 300 years.

The business was officially established in 1698 at 3 St James's Street, opposite St James's Palace. An Italian warehouse on the site had been supplying goods to the Palace since 1532. Berry's evolved from selling exotic spices, tea and coffee, to fine wines and whiskey.

Since 1760, during King George III's reign, Berry's has been supplying the British Royal Family. In 1999, the new Dublin shop was established in the city's old Corporation Weights and Measures building at 4 Harry St. Hawkins believes longevity and maintaining a quality reputation has allowed Berry's to spread its wings into the Republic of Ireland, and more recently into Hong Kong and China.

"We've got the traditional reputation and the buying power, the range of products, so as a fine wine merchant we would be second to none in the UK. For fine wines buyers of Burgundy and Bordeaux we're one of the biggest in Europe.

"The fundamentals for us are our own label brands - Berry's Own Selection. Our biggest selling wine is our 'Good Ordinary Claret' for €9.95. That's our most important wine - we rest our reputation on it. We're sourcing very well made fine wines from overseas with possibly low production and with quality at the forefront, and that's what we're pushing to restaurants."

Hawkins says the average spend for a bottle of wine in Berry's Dublin store is €17. "There's a lot of interest in the Jacob's Creek of this world. They're big sellers and people like those under €10 fruit driven wines. There's a few wine bars in Dublin, but for the size of the city there's surprisingly few and there definitely scope in the market because the ones that do exist are doing well and are very popular.

"Chilean and Argentinean brands are massive. But they're not boutique wines - they're brands we all know. A lot of the media support those wines and consider pricing fundamental to the quality of a wine. But you have to pay a bit more to get the intrinsic quality and that's taking a while to filter through to customers.

"The Old World is always lagging behind on the marketing front namely because of labelling and obviously they haven't got standard varietal names. Germany is striving to change their bottle shapes to recapture the markets.

"Spain and Italy are beginning to march into areas traditionally held by Bordeaux due to the fact they're producing wines that are approachable and beautifully made, and are at a lower price point so they're beginning to take a lot of Bordeaux's market away. Even the boutique wines in the €10-15 price point from Spain and Italy are attracting a lot of attention. But for the restaurants we supply we want to sell wine that is a great product, and not something that people see everywhere.

"If we sell it to a top restaurant, you'll only get it from Berry's. That's the unique driver for us. We exclusively represent agencies from South Africa, Argentina, Australia and other New World countries."

Hawkins believes Berry's has 'stolen the march' on many of its wine merchant rivals simply by having a well constructed and informative website.

The website is divided into four sections - 'go shopping', 'wine knowledge', 'BBR services', and 'your account'. The 'go shopping' section allows BBR members to view wine offers, delivery options, as well as the latest details of wine regions, producers, grape varieties, vintage charts, and gifts. The 'wine knowledge' feature includes latest wine industry news, an email newsletter, wine school details, tastings, and a wine quiz.

The 'BBR services' on offer include an online wedding list service, wine storage details, corporate sales, cellar plans, and wine club details. Members can log into the 'your account' section to view previous wines ordered, or organise for BBR to store wines for you. The Berry Bros. & Rudd website is: www.bbr.com.