“At James Nicholson Wine Merchant we believe that truly good wine is one that has history, is made by traditional methods and with a respect for the natural environment it grows in. The winemakers we work with place emphasis on quality over quantity and the wines they produce truly reflect their heritage."

James Nicholson

“It is fitting that Jim Nicholson should have a gorgeous new building in which to house his wine selection, a dazzling piece of design by Peter Minnis of Todd's Architects. For just as winemakers are creating stunning new wineries and bodegas and destinations that make an architectural statement about who they are and what they do, it is right that this gifted wine importer should have a building that makes a statement about what he and his team do.

So, how do we read the new building? Well, Nicholson is a modernist, a person firmly rooted in his time, and yet he is also a person somewhat out of his time, for modernism has always had a somewhat uneasy relationship with the built environment in Northern Ireland. But then, Nicholson has always been out of step with the mainstream, and it is this singularity that has allowed him to be ahead of the crowd, and to stay ahead of the crowd.

He finds the best wines from the best producers, he sells them in the most radically beautiful wine shop in Ireland, and his work defines the entire spectrum of the culture of food and wine. He is not simply a modernist: he is an iconoclast, and the work of Jim Nicholson and his wife, Elspeth, is as important to the food culture as the achievement of Myrtle Allen in Ballymaloe House."

The Bridgestone Irish Food Guide 2007