If there's one often repeated complaint about Irish dining it's this: the price of the wine that accompanies the meal. Yes, the government has its share of the blame, putting the highest excise duty on wine in the EU and then VAT on top of that, but restaurants are increasingly loading the price of the wine. Once you could assume a simple rule of thumb, the restaurant price for wine was double the wholesale price. Not, you notice, double the retail price - but double the wholesale price, which used to work out at about 66% more than retail. How times have changed, I've seen wines on restaurant wine lists that are four times the wholesale price. That's not just greed, that's verging on theft. In the past, when I've found a very expensive wine list, I've confined myself to remarking only that the list was 'heavily marked up.' From now on I'll be specific. If I see wines marked up at three or four times wholesale, I'll let you know what they are, what they cost at source, and what they're being sold for. You can then decide whether you feel like being ripped off or not in that establishment.

Now the reason for this diatribe is that there are people in the restaurant trade who are just as concerned about the general rip-off as many consumers are. There aren't many of them, I grant you, but they are lighting a new way to serve wine in restaurants. I came across it first in Bond, a restaurant in Dublin that used its basement as an off-license. You could choose a wine there and then drink it in the restaurant for a modest corkage fee. The Gables in Foxrock has a similar approach, an excellent McCabes outlet is part of the restaurant complex. This approach allows the consumer to drink a much better wine for his euro. If, like me, you have a mentally established price range of €20-25, that buys you a decent wine in most restaurants. On expensive lists that same price will buy you a wine that's barely drinkable. With the off-sale and corkage system that same expenditure will buy you a very good wine.

Last night I came across an even more extreme variation. In Wexford's Heavens Above Restaurant, there's no corkage charge at all. Next door to the restaurant and pub is the off-license, where some 250 wines are displayed. It's a well laid out shop that's pleasurable to peruse, there are wines from all around the world, all carefully chosen and all good value. You can do as we did, go in there first, buy your wine and then go upstairs to the restaurant, clutching your bottle, or if you want to be a real foodie, choose your meal first then go downstairs to pick the right wine to accompany it. Keeping to my usual price range, we ended up choosing a delicious New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which was priced at €17.50, a good €15 less than it might normally be on a restaurant list.

The restaurant, Heavens Above, is up a few flights of stairs that are reached from inside the pub, The Sky and the Ground, which is at the far end of Wexford's Main Street. The pub itself is attractive in that kind of knick-knack clutter way; low-ceilings and plenty of partitions give it an intimate feel. Upstairs the restaurant is in what looks as though it was a loft. A beamed ceiling, tables and chairs of dark wood and dark anaglypta paper on the walls make the dining room as comfortable and as cosy as the pub downstairs.

John, Isabella, Susie and me settled into a table by the window, the ladies taking the padded seats looking into the room, while John and I sat on the hard chairs opposite them. We saw two menus, a table d'hote which is priced at €29 and the a la carte. If you get there early enough there's an early bird menu as well, which is priced at €24.50. The starters are priced in and around €8 and there's quite a lot of sea food, which since we were but a spit away from the sea, was entirely appropriate. Although there were meaty things to choose from as well, we all settled on fishy starters; a seafood chowder for Isabella, prawn tails served on home-made tagliatelle for Susie, a smoked haddock fish cake for John and the mussels for me. No question that Isabella and I hit the jackpot - her chowder was rich, creamy and full of seafood while my mussels were juicy, fat and fresh.

For the main course I found myself tempted by the meats, since there was both ostrich and kangaroo on the menu, two meats that I haven't tasted since I last had them at Derry Clarke's L'Ecrivain. Still, the New Zealand Sauvignon was definitely calling out for fish, so once again we all chose fish: cod for John, salmon for Isabella and me and sole fillets stuffed with prawns for Susie. All the main courses are priced at around €20 and that includes vegetables and potatoes, so there are no hidden extras to surprise you. The fish we had was very fresh, but was perhaps more elaborate than it needed to be. John felt that his cod was over-flavoured with the feta, olives, basil and sun-dried tomato that came with it. My salmon, which was served with crab claws as a daily special, worked very well as did Susie's sole fillets, which were rolled up and stuffed with a sweetcorn and prawn duxelle.

These very filling main courses left us with little appetite, but Susie and Isabella managed a chocolate babycake between them. Tisanes and coffees finished the meal. The 'no corkage' idea began as an experiment, but has been so popular that they've decide to keep it. No wonder it's successful, customers can drink some very good wines indeed without breaking the bank. An there's no doubt that it adds to the pleasure of dining in Heavens Above.

www.skyandtheground.com