Ginger in Your Wine

At their 37-acre vineyard in Hastings ,England ,the wines are fortified,with 17 per cent alcohol,high sugar content and have been apparently restructured to suit Indian dishes. “These wines can be enjoyed with hot and spicy Indian food like tandoori chicken,dal makhni,etc since they are fortified. The high alcohol lifts the oil content from the dish and the fruitiness softens the spice quotient of the dish. Its sugar content also makes it suitable to paired with desserts,” she adds. The wines are priced at Rs 1,635 per bottle in Delhi .

Flavoured wine is nothing less than blasphemous in the vocabulary of any sommelier. Harshal Shah,consultant sommelier,says,“I would not regard them as wines since they defy the definition of what a wine is. Wines are grapes that are fermented. At best,this is flavoured alcohol.” Magandeep Singh,wine expert,agrees,“There is no way to prove a claim that flavoured wines are suited for Indian food. These can be paired with Indian desserts and are something new in the Indian wine market.”

Despite everyone from French to Australians trying to sell their wines,Indians have not taken to it. “China consumes 67 per cent of the wine produce in Asia while India accounts for just 1 per cent,” says Kavita Faiella,sommelier at The Aman. “Compared to what Europe consumes annually,India’s share is just a teaspoonful of wine.” Can adraki wine change that?