GOOD TIMES FOR BUBBLY: Moments After Chandon Launch, Fratelli Formally Announces Rollout of Gran Cuvée Brut

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

The entry of the Fratelli Gran Cuvee Brut
Sparkling will make the bubbly market
that much more exciting

JUST AS I’d finished updating my post on the Chandon launch — my effusiveness, by the way, got me a mild rap from an active member of the Indian Wine Academy, a Facebook forum I greatly respect — I got a press release in my inbox announcing the launch of Fratelli’s bubbly, a methode traditionelle sparkling wine with 100 per cent Chenin Blanc.

The ambitiously named Gran Cuvée Brut has been developed by Fratelli Wines at Akluj, the old cotton trade centre of Maharashtra’s Sholapur district, which is now famous for the Indo-Italian joint wine venture. And the winemaker is the celebrated Piero Masi, about whom I had written about some time back in my report on Fratelli Sangiovese Blanc, which I found to be a creditable addition to the company’s wine portfolio. It’s a drinkable aperitif wine — just the kind you’d serve on a Saturday night at a small party.

I hope to taste very soon the Gran Cuvée Brut (Mumbai, Rs 995; Delhi, Rs 1,050), but when I was talking about it with Moet Hennessy’s Regional Managing Director (Asia Pacific), Mark Bedingham, he said the entry of more quality bubbly into the presently limited market would also make the category grow. I agree. With Sula, Grover Zampa, Moet Hennessy India and Fratelli, all quality players, ready to give each other a run for the money, the net gainer will be the consumer. I only wish, though, the Gran Cuvée Brut proudly announced itself as a ‘Product of India’ or ‘Product of Akluj’ in the same way as Chandon does.

What interests me about Gran Cuvée Brut is that it is a single-varietal sparkling wine. Champagne houses normally use three varietals (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier), unless they are making blanc de blancs exclusively from Chardonnay, to balance out the shortcomings of a particular grape in a particular year. As the popular saying goes (which I got know thanks to Bedingham), “In diversity there’s consistency.”

I will now quote extensively from the Fratelli media release to give you an idea of the production process — it’s the same that is employed to make champagne in France.

“After the primary fermentation,” says the media release, “the blend is bottled with yeast and a small quantity of sugar for a second fermentation at the Fratelli winery in Akluj. During the secondary fermentation, the bottles are stored horizontally, maintained at 10 degrees C constantly so that once the second fermentation is over, lees will mature and add complexity to the wine, both on the nose and the palate with bready notes.

“The bottles are then taken through a process known as ‘riddling’ where they are shelved in special racks, called pupitres, which hold the bottles at a 45-degree angle, with the crown pointing downwards. Using Italian machinery, once a day, the bottles are given a slight shake and turned, once to the right, then left, and then dropped back into the pupitres, with the angle gradually increased. The drop back into the rack gives a slight push, so that the sediments settle towards the neck of the bottle. In seven days, the position of the bottle is straight down, with the lees settled in the neck. This process of removing the lees is called disgorging.

“As the sugar added previously is consumed in the second fermentation process, the next stage is adding another small quantity of sugar to the blend. Piero Masi says, ‘We add a mixture of the base wine and sucrose called liqueur d’expédition to the blend. This is not to make the wine sweet, but to balance the high acidity of the blend. As the name suggests, the wine we have created at Fratelli is called Brut, meaning dry and having very less quantity of sugar’.”

And here are the tasting notes and food pairing suggestions from Fratelli Wines.

Tasting Notes: The Fratelli Gran Cuvee Brut, like good champagne, has typical bready yeast notes on the nose. The wine has a delicate and creamy texture with persistent bubbles and a touch of citrus on the palate, coupled with the typical Fratelli Chenin Blanc minerality. It also has a nice persistence in the mouth, as well as the glass.

Grape: The Chenin Blanc expresses typical mineral notes and acidity, perfectly balanced, making this Indian sparkling wine a surprisingly elegant experience.

Food Pairing: Excellent with sushi, prawns, oysters, duck spring rolls, smoked salmon, liver pate and creamy chicken dishes.

Serving Temperature:  3 to 7 degrees C

Connoisseurs Vote for Mixed Bag of Winners in Blind Tasting of Indian Wines

By Sourish Bhattacharyya
THE WESTIN at Koregaon Park, Pune, took a bold leap of faith and organised an event called Wines of India this past Sunday to showcase the increasing diversity emerging out of the country’s vineyards. It was a bold leap of faith because our starred hotels treat Indian wines the way they used to dismiss the country’s culinary wealth with utter disdain. It’s almost as if they are embarrassed to operate in a country that also produces wine!

Grover Zampa Vineyards COO Sumedh Singh
Mandla (left) with Subhash Arora, President,
Indian Wine Academy, at the Wines of India
event at The Westin, Koregaon Park, Pune
(Picture: Courtesy of Subhash Arora)

Just like Indian restaurants used to get the worst locations in a starred hotel and tandoors were kept only for making breads and a few standard kebabs, till ITC changed the rules of the game with Bukhara at the Maurya in the 1980s, Indian labels are put right at the end of wine lists, as if our hotels are afraid of owning up to the fact that India also produces wines. Indian wines are not even kept in rooms for guests entitled to the freebie.

It was commendable therefore to see The Westin get wine producers from Maharashtra and Karnataka together at Koregaon Park, Pune, a neighbourhood that has always been associated with an evolved lifestyle, maybe because of its proximity to the Osho Ashram. And when I saw my good friend, Indian Wine Academy President Subhash Arora, head straight to Pune after flying in from Hong Kong, I knew it was an event that was being taken with utmost seriousness by our wine luminaries.

Those invited (about 150 experts and connoisseurs from across the country) to this first-of-its-kind event to be organised by a starred hotel got busy doing some serious blind tasting and rating the wines they were served during the course of the day. In the evening, the same wines were served at a networking dinner where the who’s who of Pune showed up. The wineries that participated in the event were: Sula, Fratelli, Grover Zampa, Four Seasons, Nine Hills, Reveilo, Kiara, Turning Point, Vallonné and York. “We believe that wineries in India today produce some of the world’s best wines,” said Vikas Malik, Regional Director (Food & Beverage), South Asia, Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels & Resorts. “These go very well with the Indian palate and international travellers are also trying out local wines,” Malik added.

Subhash commented later on my Facebook wall that “the methodology left much to be desired. … Winners will make a mistake hanging the results on their walls.” Being a veteran of 35-odd international wine competitions, Subhash may not approve of the idea of a whole lot of people, moving from one counter to another, tasting and judging wines on the rather basic criteria of taste, colour, look and after appeal.

My take on the event is that it was the closest we have come to involving consumers in the exercise of judging the wines they would like to drink. Unless people take ownership of what they consume, we’ll never have a robust wine drinking culture. To quote Dilip Puri, Managing Director (India) and Regional Vice President (South Asia), Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels & Resorts: “Wine tasting sessions are very popular internationally and considering the growing wine market in India, this was a great opportunity to showcase the best wines produced within the country at one common platform and gather feedback that will help us enhance our wine offering to our guests.”

The blind tasting results, based on the scores given by the invitees, are out. What I loved about the list of winners and runners-up is that it spills over with surprises, which means no company has attempted to influence the outcome. The spokesperson for The Westin, Koregaon Park, Pune, said the winner wines will be promoted in the hotel for the next three months and if the feedback is good, the event may be repeated in other Starwood hotels as well (The Westin is one of the brands that Starwood operates).

I am sharing the list. Remember, it’s the 2013 vintage, so the reds may still be a bit rough on the edges. A lot of the wines may also not be available in your city, but when you’re out travelling, especially to Mumbai, you can always buy the wine you’re missing.

The winners are:

Chardonnay: Reveilo Chardonnay Reserve (W); Reveilo Chardonnay (R)

Chenin Blanc: Nine Hills Chenin Blanc (W); Reveilo Chenin Blanc (R)

Sauvignon Blanc: Fratelli Sauvignon Blanc (W); Sula Sauvignon Blanc (R)

Sparkling: Zampa Soiree Brut (W); Zampa Soiree Rose Brut (R)

Dessert Wine: Sula Late Harvest Chenin Blanc (W); York Late Harvest Chenin Blanc (R)

Merlot: Vallonné Merlot Reserve (W); Fratelli Merlot (R)

Shiraz: Turning Point Shiraz (W); Sula Rasa Shiraz (R)

Cabernet Sauvignon: Reveilo Cabernet Sauvignon (W); York Cabernet Sauvignon (R)

Cabernet Blend: Grover La Reserva (W); Turning Point Shiraz Cabernet (R)

Rosé: Nine Hills Rosé (W); Vallonné Rosé (R)