Recently I was lunching with a group of restaurateurs and the conversation turned to wine lists. As the sole representative of restaurant reviewers at the table, I was acutely aware of being out-numbered. But restaurateurs are for the most part gentlefolk and the conversation remained muted and civilised. The issue was this: what's a reasonable mark-up on wine? Traditionally it was always 100% on the wholesale price, but then that rule was formulated before the invention and application of VAT. Perhaps then we can say that a 100% over wholesale, plus another 20% for the VAT is about right. You might reasonably ask why a restaurant should mark up its wines by this amount, but when you think about it, the answer is clear enough. When you drink a bottle of wine in a restaurant you're availing of the room, the service and all the other parts that go into a restaurant's overheads. As a customer, that's how you get to pay for them.

I've complained often enough in the past about wine lists that mark-up by 200% and even in the odd cases 300%. Apart from the fact that it seems inordinately greedy, it makes people on a fixed budget drink an inferior wine for their money, and in my case makes me irritable and disagreeable as well. Surely, I argued to my restaurateur friends, it's better to sell more wine at a reasonable mark-up than fewer bottles at a high-mark up that annoys people? But what prompts this dissertation on mark-ups is that last week I found an immensely reasonably priced wine list and this week another one. What the two lists have in common is that neither of them is in Dublin, and just possibly there's a pattern here. Maybe Dublin diners have become inured to high wine prices and no longer complain about them.

My friend Sarah Hussey lives deep in Southern Wicklow in a house that overlooks the neonate river Slaney and with spectacular views of Table Mountain and Lugnaquilla. Our plan was to go from here down river to Leighlinbridge to The Lord Bagenal - a pub and restaurant on the riverside. It was a gentle drive across pretty countryside and might have been even nicer if the rain had stopped even momentarily. What you will notice as you cross the country these days is road-side 'Art'. This is a function of the 1% levy on all road building, improving and widening schemes that goes to pay for 'Art'. If you've ever wondered where some of the more bizarre roadside creations come from, now you know. You pass a few of these on the way to Leighlinbridge, with a prime example just as you turn off the main road into Leighlinbridge itself. 'Nuff said.

The Lord Bagenal has an enormous car park, which was almost completely full as we drove in. 'That's either a really good, or a really bad sign,' thought Sarah. There's a little walled garden sheltering the main building from the car park, and inside the walls there's a few raised beds and a cast-iron fountain which was burbling away happily. Lashing rain prevented any further examination of this strangely urban garden, and we went in. The restaurant surrounds about half of the bar, with the rest of the space reserved for drinkers. We took a seat at the counter, sipped a Campari soda to make believe it was summer, and read the menus. There are two; a table d'hôte at £24 and an a la carte, with much of the a la carte appearing on the set menu.
It's a middle-of-the-road kind of menu, combining old favourites like prawn cocktail and crab claws with the odd more unusual dish like wrap of goats cheese and roasted quail. Dunmore East crab features quite prominently in both starters and main courses, which also include chicken Kiev, roast shank of lamb, roast duck, pork fillet, poached darne of salmon and monk fish a la Siciliana. But what makes The Lord Bagenal stand out from the crowd is the wine list.

I could easily devote the rest of this page to enthusing over this list, but I'll try and keep the plaudits short. On page one of this long and interesting list is a credit to James Keogh, who selected these wines. Here's a few of the gems on offer: 1970 Branaire Ducru at £70, 1971 Brane Cantanac at £75, a couple of crus bourgeois 1985 for under £30, a 1982 Riussec at £65, a 1981 Barbaresco from Gaja at £45, Gaja's Nebbiolo 1982 at £32, 1982 Sammarco from Rampolla at £60 and the one I chose, the 1983 Taurino from Mastroberardino at £20. All the wines under £20 had a modest mark-up and the range of choice is almost bewildering. Quite one of the best restaurant wine lists I've seen.

We started with the crab meat and avocado salad for Sarah and a prawn cocktail for me. Prawn cocktails, once the mainstay of restaurant starters, are now something of a rarity. It was the classical presentation; a wine glass filled to the top with shredded lettuce and the prawns balanced on top. Both of these were perfectly agreeable and we awaited the main courses as the Taurasi opened up in the glasses. Showing some signs of age, it was still a great wine - although perhaps austere to the modern palate.

Sarah had ordered the monk fish a la Siciliana, which she enjoyed. I declined to taste it, as I'd chosen the pork fillet 'Saltimbocca', which was quite strongly flavoured. This was based on the Roman veal dish of the same name; it included the sage and the ham, but had the addition of cream which made it a more filling dish. It was a good reduction sauce, and although I'm often a pedant when it comes to classical recipes, I enjoyed this dish and ate it all. The vegetables which accompanied our main courses included bulb fennel, not the most usual of vegetables in Ireland.

There's an immensely long list of desserts, mostly at £3, and between us we picked the meringue roulade with fresh raspberries. Big and generous it finished the meal for me, since an espresso wasn't on offer. One last look at the wine list for after dinner drinks, and we picked a Chartreuse on ice for Sarah. Our bill came to £79.50, not including service, which was about a fiver more than it should have been, since I'd chosen from the set menu but was billed for two a la carte choices. Careless, but forgivable.