This column first appeared in the 7 November 2013 edition of Mail Today. Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers.
Log on to http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=7112013 and go to Page 15
By Sourish Bhattacharyya
A COUPLE OF fortnights back, I had written about the
discovery of Masterchef South Africa finalist Guy Clark by Max India chairman,
Analjit Singh (current worth: $705 million, estimated by Forbes.com), which
culminated in the opening of Uzuri Deck & Dining at M-Block Market, Greater
Kailash-II. The multi-millionaire has now sent ripples across the wine world by
buying into one of South Africa's youngest and much-acclaimed wineries,
Mullineux Family Wines.
Singh's "complete love affair" with
South Africa, as we are informed by the wine writer Tim James
(http://grape.co.za), started with his maiden trip to that country during the
2010 FIFA World Cup, thanks to his soccer-obsessed son. It was then that he
discovered Franschhoek, an exclusive enclave near Cape Town established by the
French Huguenots in 1688, and now famous for its wineries as well as
award-winning restaurants (including Le Quartier Francaise, which was ranked
36th in the San Pellegrino Top 50 Restaurants of the World in 2011). He bought
a mansion house, the Dassenberg Farm, in that exclusive neighbourhood and James
writes that it is being re-landscaped in a major way.
 |
| Max India Chairman Analjit Singh has invested in the young and acclaimed Mullineux Family Wines in South Africa owned by Chris and Andrea Mullineux |
Mullineux Family Wines was established in 2007 by a young
accountant-turned-winemaker Chris Mullineux and his American wife Andrea, a
graduate of the famous viticulture and oenology programme of the University of
California-Davis -- they had met, as you'd expect from a wine fairytale, in
Champagne and instantly fell in love. They started the company with investments
from the British serial entrepreneur and philanthropist Keith Prothero, who had
made his money in the finance business in Hong Kong, and accountant Peter Dart.
Within a short time, Mullineux acquired a stellar reputation
with its portfolio of wines (three with the coveted five-star rating) produced
in the granite- and shale-based terroir of the Swartland, a young and tiny wine
region 50km north of Cape Town that was previously famous for being the home of
South Africa's oldest colonial hotel, The Royal at Riebeek Kasteel. The
viticulturist Rosa Kruger, one of South Africa's great "wine innovators"
(to quote FT's celebrated columnist Jancis Robinson) and fairy godmother to the
Young Turks of her country's blossoming wine industry, introduced Singh to the
Mullineux couple.
For Singh, who's seriously looking at bigger forays into
food, wine and hospitality, to mastermind which he has appointed Hector de
Galard to Max India, it seemed like just the kind of match he would love to
seal. An opportunity presented itself when Prothero, who has also financed the
London fine wine store, The Sampler, and is funding a charity working for the
welfare of South African children afflicted by the foetal alcohol syndrome,
announced that he would like to sell his stake in the business. Singh's Leeu
International Investments Limited ('Leeu' is the Afrikaans word for 'lion', or Singh!)
picked up this stake, making him the first major Indian investor in an
important South African wine company.
Last fortnight, I had written about Hindustan Construction
Company's Ajit Gulabchand and his massive investment in Nashik's Charosa
winery. If Indian investors of the stature of Analjit Singh and Ajit Gulabchand
pump money into the wine business, whether in India or around the world, then
the profile of the country's wine market will transform dramatically. What the
country's wine business desperately needs is an infusion of corporate culture into
its daily operations to help it rise above its infantile presence. It will definitely
help the country's wine producers to stop behaving like small farmers and make
common cause to grow the market, and also get the government to start taking
the business seriously. At the moment, the Indian Grape Processing Board is a
joke dominated by small-time farmer-producers led by officials who essentially
use the organisation to collect frequent flier miles by organising study trips
around wine-making countries. People like Analjit Singh can change the face of
this unorganised business.
NO GAMBLING AT DRY
& VEGGIE BANGKOK DIWALI DOS
I WAS in Bangkok on Diwali eve, on an assignment for one of
my many current employers, and I was struck by the sight of women brightly
dressed in the Indo-Thai style accompanied by plainly clothed men with flat
white turbans and flowing beards zipping into the porch of the busy Sheraton Grande on Sukhumvit Road in their sport cars, conversing with each other in
the Thai language as spoken by the locals. They lent colour and buzz to the
lobby of the busy hotel.
I found out that they were members of Bangkok's Namdhari Sikh
families, which are at the forefront of local businesses, and Diwali-eve
parties are occasions for them to bond. For the hotel, which is owned by an old
Punjabi business family settled in Thailand, these parties mean good business.
And the seriousness with which it takes this business is apparent from the
presence of an Indian chef, Janmejoy Sen (formerly of The Imperial New Delhi), catering
especially to the social calendar of the Thai capital's vibrant Punjabi
community.
Unlike Delhi's Diwali parties, where high stakes rule the
gambling tables, single malts and Barolos get flashed, and an array of exotic
dishes (from fondues to anda paranthas,
which were hugely popular at a party hosted by a builder-hotelier this past
weekend), the ones in Bangkok are strictly dry and vegetarian, and gambling is
a big no-no. Namdharis (or Kukas), who constitute 60-70 per cent of the Thai
population of Indian origin, are vegetarian and teetotallers. Their code of
simple living forbids them to gamble and explains the everyday nature of the
simple clothes worn by the men. I am told the non-Namdhari Punjabis aren't
bound by such considerations, but thankfully, they haven't imported the culture
of gambling.
The Diwali-eve party that I got a glimpse of was a tasteful
affair. The hotel's event planner had got the venue decorated with Thai silks
and flower arrangements, an old-fashioned band was in attendance with a pianist
playing old Hindi film numbers and contemporary Thai tunes, and the food spread
was a delight. From vegetarian sushi and quesadilla, to khao suey, pad thai and
pastas cooked live, to Vietnamese kanom
baung yuan (coconut rice pancakes), to matar
paneer, naan and pedas, it looked as if the kitchens of
the world had come home to roost at this Diwali-eve party. You can take Indians
out of India, but you can't take India out of them!
COOKING UP A STORM IN THE DESERT
THE Bollywood stars who attended Nita Ambani's 50th birthday,
and the 55 private jets that ferried them and the other celebrities and
captains of industry who attended the celebrations in Jodhpur, may have
cornered media mind space, but who were the chefs who kept the country's A-List
eating out of their hands?
As you'd expect from an event of this class, super chef Hemant
Oberoi of the Taj Group presided over the Umaid Bhawan Palace dinner where the
best dishes of the hotel chain's top restaurants, from Blue Ginger to Wasabi, were
showcased. At the Bal Samand Palace high tea followed by dinner, Manish
Mehrotra of Indian Accent rolled out his signature phulka tacos, but the fillings were strictly vegetarian, and six
designer chaats, including dahi batata poori with wasabi peas and
caramelised onion kachoris served
with blue cheese sauce.
The equally inventive Abhijit Saha, the chef-restaurateur behind
Bangalore's Caperberry, served molecular gastronomy canapes and desserts
carrying his creative imprint. The surprise of that evening, though, was a
caterer from Surat named Tapan Choksi. He laid out a wow Gujarati spread that
his mother, who's in her 70s and very close to Kokilaben Ambani, personally got
made over two days. She made sure the dinner turned out to be a wow experience
that the privileged guests wouldn't forget in a hurry.
RIP: CHARLIE TROTTER, 1959-2013
WHEN I woke up to Sabyasachi 'Saby' Gorai's Facebook post on
what Charlie Trotter meant to him and other young chefs of his generation, I got
a sense of the vast circle of influence of the Chicago chef-restaurateur who
passed away on November 5. Trotter was 54 when he died, which only compounds
the loss, for the man who read Political Science at the University of
Wisconsin, talked management (Businessweek
brilliantly describes him as a 'Master Chef with a McKinsey Mind'), took foie gras off the menu in 2002, and was
one of the most revered chefs of his age, could have shaped at least a couple of
more generations. Aspiring chefs have devoured his books, his restaurants have
won a procession of honours, but we'll always remember him for his famous line
from his cameo role in My Best Friend's
Wedding: "I will kill your whole family if you don't get this right!"
No comments:
Post a Comment