FORTUNE COOKIE: Sula Vineyards to Serve a Slice of Goa at its Destination Winery

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

I FIRST went to Nashik, India's wine country, about a decade ago and spent a couple of nights at what was then Sula Vineyards founder-CEO Rajeev Samant's home in the winery he had launched with the promise to put what he described as "our own Napa Valley" on the world wine map.

Goa's most famous shack restaurant, La Plage

(above), opens this Sunday in a gaily colourful

setting at Sula Vineyards, Nashik, giving wine

tourism in India a fashionable new direction

It was in the middle of a blazing summer, but as soon as the evening would set in, a rejuvenating cool breeze swept the leaves off the courtyard and brought the mercury down by a good number of notches. That was the signal for the cook to bring out my favourite Dindori Shiraz, a hearty red that turned out to be a match made in heaven for his Kolhapuri chicken. I used to wonder then if Nashik's newbie wineries such as Sula would be able to capitalise on their location in the lap of nine lone hills of the Sahyadris and make wine tourism a viable business vertical in what was till then an industrial town whose only other claim to fame was (and will forever be) its proximity to Shirdi, hometown of the original Sai Baba.

A decade later, Samant, a Stanford graduate who did a stint at Oracle, has not only made Sula the country's top wine brand straddling 70 per cent of the market, but also turned Nashik into a premier wine tourism destination. His old house has made way for a boutique hotel and last year, Sula's vineyards drew over 170,000 visitors from all over the world. It was a model that Vijay Mallya's Four Seasons wines sought to replicate in a picture-perfect Italian villa at Baramati (Sharad Pawar's bastion in the backyard of Pune) till the company's financial troubles got the better of the project. Fratelli, a successful new wine player, has also been doing something similar, though on a more modest scale, at its state-of-the-art winery in Akluj, the old cotton trade outpost in Maharashtra's Solapur district.

Sula, however, continues to be the leader in this new business, and now, by teaming up with a Goan institution, the celebrated French restaurant La Plage, it has taken wine tourism to a serious new level. For Samant, getting La Plage (whose restaurant at Sula Vineyards, which opens on Sunday, July 6, is called Soleil) to Nashik was "a big thing personally" because, as he explained to me, his second home, which is in Goa, is just behind the restaurant on Ashwem Beach in Morjim.

Imagine savouring a glass of Sula's
award-winning Shiraz, Rasa, even as you
soak in the verdant scenery of vineyards
in the shadow of the Sahyadri hills!

La Plage, which literally means 'the beach', is a stylish shack restaurant, which was launched in 2002 as a humble six-table establishment serving breakfast and lunch. Its founding trio -- Morgan Rainforth, a Welsh-French national who had studied cookery in Provence and had had enough of working with temperamental French chefs; his girlfriend Florence Tarbouriech, whom he met in Barcelona; and her long-time friend Serge Lozano -- fell in love with Goa on a backpacking visit and decided to stay on by doing what they knew best: running a restaurant. It turned out to be a gastronomic coup and very soon, celebrities from Amitabh Bachchan to Jeremy Irons and Kate Moss joined La Plage's growing fan following, savouring the French fare that Rainforth dished up with remarkable consistency.

International acclaim has been pouring in on Rainforth and his mates, like Goa's monsoon showers, and though the thatch-roofed restaurant, guarded by palms bent by centuries of sea breeze, stays shut from April to November, its loyalists show up without fail as soon as it opens for its unbeatable chicken liver pate with onion jam and the Thali au Chocolat. Well-known for being a ceaseless innovator, Rainforest surprises his guests with the tasteful simplicity of dishes such as fillets of tuna, served rare and encrusted with sesame seeds, and drizzled with a sweet-tangy soy sauce; or calamari stuffed with ratatouille; or the sardine filets with wasabi cream. Just the kind of food that'll make you yearn for a bottle of wine.

SWISS SCOOPS WARM UP ICE-CREAM MARKET

Movenpick has arrived in Delhi
with new global flavours such as
the popular crème brûlée (above)

AT RS 175 A SCOOP, Mövenpick is the second international premium ice-cream brand to enter Delhi (at the Select Citywalk, Saket) after Haagen Dasz, which despite its "Danish-sounding" name (a tribute to the treatment of Jews in Denmark during World War II) was born in Bronx, New York. Mövenpick is Swiss, the brainchild of a restaurateur named Ueli Prager, who opened his first outlet in Zurich in 1948, and the name he gave it is now famous as the ice-cream brand.

The restaurant became famous for the unusual ice-cream flavours on its menu, and as its outlets opened across Switzerland, the brand Mövenpick was born, but only after its takeover by Nestle in 2003 did it spread internationally.

 Boston University MBA Tarun Sikka
is the premium ice-cream brand's
national franchisee

Mövenpick first arrived in India in 2008, but the going wasn't good and its operations were wound down. With a young franchisee, Boston University MBA Tarun Sikka, driving it now, the ice-cream brand entered the country from Chennai and Delhi is its second pit stop. Bangalore and Mumbai are the cities next on its growth trajectory, and Sikka is confident, "without being over-ambitious", that he'll be able to cater to the niche market that Movenpick serves. "Do you know Movenpick is the top-selling ice-cream brand in Bangladesh?" Sikka declares triumphantly, adding that it's already on the menu of 30 hotels across India, including the Taj in Delhi and Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

What I find refreshing about Mövenpick ice-creams is their unusual range of flavours -- crème brûlée is my personal favourite and I believe its masala chai variant is an international fast mover. The ice-creams are without artificial preservatives or flavourings, yet they are produced in such a way that their shelf life is 18 months; the sorbets hold good for a year. Each season, Mövenpick releases two sets of ice-cream: 16 flavours are fixed and another seven or eight are from its 'experimental' range, but what sets each one of them apart is the flavour intensity provided by the six or seven layers of the base ingredient in each scoop. There's a reason why good taste comes at a price.

NO CELEBRATION FOR OLD MONK AS IT FUMBLES IN YOUNG MARKET

ONE of the most anticipated rankings in the business of beverages is the global wine and spirits consultancy IWSR's Real 100 List, which stacks up local brews that are more powerful than most international best-sellers.

The old market leader has been left way behind
by United Spirits Limited's Celebration rum,
the world's No. 9 alcoholic beverage

This year's Top Ten List has two pieces of news relevant to our market. One is that Officer's Choice, which grew by nearly 5.5 million nine-litre cases in 2013, surpassing McDowell's No. 1, is officially the world's largest-selling whisky at 24.16 million cases. Across beverage categories, the two are at Nos. 5 and 6, compared with Johnnie Walker's No. 8 (19.28 million cases).

The second news, and this is a shocker, is that Mohan Meakin's Old Monk, for long the country's top-selling  Indian Made Foreign Liquor brand and the world No. 2 rum after Bacardi, has officially been relegated into a far corner by another United Spirits Limited (USL) heavy-hitter, Celebration, which reached 18.9 million cases (and the No. 9 position) in 2013. For those of us who've lost our alcoholic virginity with Old Monk, it's sad to see its sorry decline because of bad marketing and lousy distribution. Mohan Meakin's geriatric leadership doesn't seem to realise that nostalgia alone doesn't get the cash registers ringing.

KOREA'S JINRO SOJU IS THE WORLD'S NO. 1 ALCOBEV

WHAT makes Jinro special? For starters, it is the world's most consumed alcoholic beverage brand, it is produced in South Korea, and it sold 65.66 million nine-litre cases in 2013, according the global wine and spirits consultancy IWSR's authoritative Real 100 List. Jinro has been in the business of making soju, the Korean cousin of vodka, since 1924 and it was acquired by Hite, the manufacturer of Korea's largest-selling beer, in 2008. What's interesting about Jinro is that its label tells you whether it's being served to you at the right temperature. Each bottle comes with a temperature-sensitive paper tab in the shape of a frog, the company's label. It is white when the bottle is warm, but turns blue when it is cold and drinkable. Cool, isn't it?

This column first appeared in the Mail Today edition dated July 3, 2014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

Marks & Spencer Selects Sula's Jewel of Nasik Trio As First Indian Wines On Its Portfolio

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

JUST A couple of days back, Sameer Sain, Managing Partner of the Indian and South-East Asian private equity fund, Everstone Capital, was quoted by The Times of India waxing ecstatic about Sula Vineyards Founder-CEO, Rajeev Samant, after exiting Nashik Vintners, the wine brand's parent company, with Rs 114 crore on an investment of Rs 37 crore made in August 2007.

"Nashik Vintners and brand Sula under Rajeev Samant's leadership has seen unprecedented success over the last several years," Sain said. Sula's revenue vaulted by more than 500 per cent over the last few years, even as the company maintained healthy operating profits. Sain also reminded the newspapers readers that Sula's distribution footprint now covers over 400 cities spanning across 23 states in the country.

Add Britain's top retailer, Marks & Spencer, to this formidable footprint and Samant has a good reason to pop open a bubbly. M&S has decided to sell Sula's three Jewel of Nasik wines -- Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel Rose and Tempranillo Shiraz -- priced at £6.99 a bottle and sporting a colourful label at 250 stores across the UK. It's a significant milestone for the company, which straddles 70 per cent of the country's wine market and exports its products to 25 countries, and for the country, because it gives Indian wine an enviable international platform that can only lift its reputation across the world. The UK, incidentally, is Sula's biggest market outside India.

Interestingly, the Marks & Spencer announcement came days after Samant presented a candid assessment of the country's wine market, balancing the opportunities with the Himalayan challenges, at the Eighth International Symposium organised by the Institute of Masters of Wine in Florence on May 15-18.

And of course, it's raining good news for Samant, with the Nashik Vintners now being valued at Rs 700 crore, after the Belgian family office Verlinvest, Anil Ambani's Reliance Capital and VisVires India Wineries have jointly acquired Rs 275 crore stake in the company. According to The Times of India, Reliance Capital and VisVires India Wineries -- the latter owned by Singapore- based Ravi Vishwanatan -- will now hold a 29 per cent stake in the company. Verlinvest, a Belgian family office belonging to the founders of beer giant Anheuser Busch InBev, will increase its stake to 23 per cent.

Commenting on the Marks & Spencer decision, Samant could not hide his excitement. “It is a proud day for us and for Indian wines and reflects the broader surge in the acceptance of our wines in this most competitive market," he said in a media statement. "Nasik, the region that we founded, is on its way to becoming a world-renowned wine region," he added.

Emma Dawson, Marks & Spencer’s Wine Buyer, joined the celebrations by stating: "We are very excited about offering customers our very first Indian wines. We’ve created these wines to be suitable to drink as an aperitif or in styles that match well with Indian food." Well, it's time for all Indian wine lovers to raise a toast to the country's wine leader.

Sulafest Has Shown the Way for Others to Follow and Harvest the Gains

This article first appeared on Indian Wine Academy's website (www.indianwineacademy.com) on Feb. 11. Reprinted with permission. Click on http://www.indianwineacademy.com/item_4_589.aspx to see it in the original format.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Susheela Raman was one of the major world
music stars who performed at Sulafest 2014.
India's premier gourmet music event is a model
for others to follow to give the wine culture
a big thrust forward.

THERE was a time when sponsoring wine dinners was the only option available to wine producers and importers to make inroads into a society wedded to brown spirits. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of people like the late Ghulam Naqshband and our own Subhash Arora, whose Delhi Wine Club events have become launch pads for wines and restaurants that believe in the wine culture, and some five-star hotels as well as passionate restaurateurs such as AD Singh, Rahul Akerkar, Ritu Dalmia, Abhijit Saha and Tarsillo Natalone, wine dinners became an essential part of the social calendar of our big cities.

As they evolve, wine dinners have started attracting the same crowd and most of the regulars are on the wrong side of the age curve -- it's a market with not more than 10 to 20 years of longevity left. Organising a wine dinner is like preaching to the converted. If the wine market has to grow, the country's vast young population -- 70 per cent of India is below the age of 35 -- must be introduced to the heady joys of the wonderful world of wine. But this important market segment seems to regard formal wine occasions to be too stuffy, too 'grey', to merit any place in its crowded life. How does the industry win this vodka-and-white-rum-toting generation over to its side of the circle of pleasure?

Seven years ago, Rajeev Samant of Sula Vineyards, who's always one step ahead of the competition, hit upon a brilliant idea. It was called Sulafest -- a weekend in February dedicated to the pleasures of wine, food and music; "a gourmet wine festival". There couldn't be a headier mix, and soon, all roads were leading to Nashik, the headquarters of the country's top wine producer. And the pilgrims on this road less travelled were precisely from the generation that considered wine to be oh-so yesterday.

The idea wasn't entirely an original Samant brainwave. The inspiration came from the grape-stomping dramas that Chateau Indage would organise every year, with Mumbai's who's who in attendance, till the company went bust. But what Samant has done is give it a spin -- and every year, Sulafest has been growing, not only in the number and quality of music acts it hosts, but also in the turnout and fashion statements that the visitor flaunt. It is India's Woodstock with shades of Ascot.

I bumped into Samant at the VIP Lounge and, after admiring his orange shorts and exchanging notes on the political temperature in Delhi, asked him about the turnout at Sulafest 2014. "I have stopped counting," he said with a broad grin. I could see the sense of triumph in his looks. He deserved his moment in the sun.

For the past two years, Sulafest has tied up with the country's leading purveyor of world music, blueFROG, which is why homegrown artistes such as Susheela Raman, Vasuda Sharma and Avial performed to capacity audiences along with the British psychedelic music group Shpongle, the toast of this year's fest; the ska/reggae band from Croydon, The Dualers; rumba-meets-raga group Gypsy All Stars; dub music and big beat band Dub Pistols; and the Italian from London, Gaudi, who's one of the busiest solo performers in the electronica world. And then there were pleasant surprises such as singer-songwriter-guitarist Gowri, who held her own and kept her audience asking for more, despite the deafening boom-boom-boom emanating from the 'Electro Zone'.

The 'Electro Zone' was rocked by some of the trendiest names in EDM -- the Brazilian export DJ Anna; the multi-cultural exponent of psychedelic trance, Ma Faiza; the Russian DJs who have a cult following in Goa, Mescaluto (Victoria) and Sashanti (Alexander Sukhochev); and the desi boy Ankytrixx (Ankit Kocher). It was an eclectic mix of music, which was being canned by VH1 for future broadcasts, and with Vero Moda, the trendy international women's fashion brand, being the lead sponsor, floral colours and youthful style were in evidence everywhere. The food was just the kind that the young love -- from momos to shawarma, from rajma-chawal to egg/kebab rolls, washed down with Mount Gay mojitos, or Asahi beer, or the sparkling fruit drinks from Pune-based Good Juicery, the baby of former Cape Town resident Michelle Bauer and her food technologist friend Julia Madlener.

There was food and drink everywhere, but no one got drunk or misbehaved, and the hundreds of young women could do exactly what they wanted to do, without any man paying more-than-usual attention to even the shortest skirt. It was clean, unalloyed fun, and people minded their own business. I wonder how many people signed up for camping at the vineyards organised by LetsCampOut.com, which was surely a first for an Indian "gourmet music" event.

Seeing the scores of young people who had signed up for the winery tour and tastings, asking questions, sipping wines and excitedly shooting selfies, Ajoy Shaw, Chief Winemaker and Vice President, Sula Vineyards, said, "This is the market we must reach out to if we have to grow." We were at Sula's Tasting Room, drinking Rasa 2007, a delicately balanced Shiraz with still some years of life left.

Shaw, a Bengali who is proud to call himself a Maharashtrian (his parents brought him to the state when he was five months old), said at least 600 people, mostly in their late 20s and early 30s, show up every weekend at Sula for guided tours, wine tastings and gorging on the food served at two vineyard restaurants (Soma and Little Italy). They go back with bottles of wine and a sense of excitement about the wine culture. They become the ambassadors of wine.

We need more clones of Sulafest -- in Akluj, in Baramati, in Charosa, in Hampi, in the Nandi Hills -- if we wish to create new gourmet tourist destinations and get more people hooked on to the joys of wine. What is the point of producing increasingly better wines if the market moves at what used to be once called the "Hindu rate of growth"?

Remy Sula's 100% Indian Grape Spirit Brandy Ready for Release; Awaits Remy Cointreau's Green Signal

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

INDIA'S first brandy made 100 per cent with grape spirit is ready for release. It is the baby of Remy Sula, a joint venture between the Paris-based ninth largest spirits company in the world, Remy Cointreau, and Nashik's Sula Vineyards, the producer of India's largest selling wines, which is led by the Standford-trained engineer and wine pioneer Rajeev Samant.

Remy Cointreau, headed by industry veteran Rukn Luthra in India, is famous for its cognac Remy Martin (and the ultra-exclusive Louis XIII) as well as the champagnes Piper-Heidsieck and Charles Heidsieck, the mid-market brandies St Remy and Metaxa, and the triple sec, Cointreau. The brandy, whose grapes are being sourced locally, is being produced at Century Wines, Baramati, under Remy Sula's supervision.

Sources close to the development say the brandy will be released only after Remy Cointreau's experts give its their thumb. The other whisper is that the company is lobbying for an excise duty reduction on grape spirit in view of the high cost of production.

The next time you visit Sula Vineyards, you may
be able to ask for a snifter of brandy -- made
100 per cent with Indian grape spirit. Image:
Courtesy of Virgin Atlantic blog

In India, brandies made by multiple local players have a minuscule quantity of grape spirit; the basic ingredient is extra neutral alcohol (ENA) produced out of molasses, which, in fact, is at the core of most Indian-manufactured spirits, starting with whisky. Media reports peg the price of ENA at Rs 20 per litre; that of grape spirit is Rs 400 per litre. It's seriously expensive to produce brandy with grape spirit, which is why the Remy Sula product may be deserving of excise duty exemption.

The Remy Sula partnership was first off the ground when the Government of Maharashtra allowed the production of grape spirit some time back to insulate farmers from the economic setback they suffer in the years when they have excess production. Wine grapes have no other use. The demand for grape spirit therefore may provide farmers an incentive to step up their production levels.

The launch of Remy Sula's first Indian grape spirit-based brandy will mark the entry of yet another important international player in the domestic wine and spirits market. Seagram India, the local arm of the French alcobev multinational, Pernod Ricard, set the ball rolling with its Nine Hills wines made in Nashik, and Moet Hennessy India most recently launched its Indian sparkling wine, Chandon, in Mumbai and Delhi to lend some sparkle to the jaded market.

Brandy, incidentally, is big business in the south, which consumed 99 per cent (Tamil Nadu alone cornered 60 per cent) of the 45-plus million, nine-litre cases of the drink released into the market in 2012. That's a substantially bigger market than wine. Remy Sula, it's apparent, wishes to gain the first-mover advantage with an Indian brandy that is produced just the way it is supposed to be. The move will give the alcobev industry an additional push to achieve higher production levels and penetrate the domestic market deeper than ever.

At India's Woodstock, A Soul-Stirring Offering of Food, Wine and Music

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

SULAFEST, without doubt, is India's Woodstock. A celebration of youth power. A showcase of good wine, food and pop fashion. A music programme packed with the best of electronica and world music. A crowd that deserves to be held up as a model of self-discipline.

When the late lamented Chateau Indage pioneered grape stomping as a marketing gimmick to glam up the wine business, wine snobs would turn their noses up and just about tolerate the publicity that the Chateau got as a result of it. No one then could imagine that the tradition would get a life of its own and grow into a cultural festival under the leadership of Rajeev Samant of Sula Wines, the Chateau's challenger and nemesis.

Sula put Nashik on the world wine map after Samant, with help from his Californian winemaker, Kerry Damsky, changed the face of a district that was previously famous for having Asia's largest wholesale onion market. Today, Sula has 238 contract farmers, supervised by a team viticulturists, growing 17 varieties of wine grapes, some of which, such as Pinot Noir (at a place named Sangvi near Pune), were considered impossible to sustain in India. In the same way, Sulafest has ensured the district's place on the tourist map -- it's a pity that the event lasts just for two days.

When you have a 20-artiste lineup with Dub Pistols, The Dualists, Vasuda Sharma, Susheela Raman and DJ Anna leading the pack, you know Sulafest 2014 is a "gourmet music festival" not to be taken lightly. There's food for every taste bud -- from shawarma and kaukswe at the Food Court next to the Main Stage to piping hot and deliciously juicy kathi rolls at the Electrozone, which has a very different vibe and music that just sucks you in. It grows on you, especially after you've had a blueFROG bottle filled up with a heady vodka and watermelon juice combo (Rs 800). You can also have a Mount Gay rum mojito (highly recommended at Rs 300), or a shot of Grant's, or an Asahi beer, or any Sula wine that catches your fancy. If you wish to take some home, my good friend, Rinku Madan, who's presiding over the Club Sula stall, will take your order and have your choice shipped to your home.

Now in its seventh year, Sulafest has put Nashik
on the world tourism map and become
India's No. 1 gourmet music festival.
Image: Courtesy of blueFrog

Or you can grab a preservatives-free, sparkling fruit juice (Rs 100) -- apple, pink guava or passionfruit, take your pick -- from Pune's Good Juicery, which was launched last year by a South African resident of the city, Michelle Bauer, and her food technologist friend Julia Madlener. I was talking to Michelle's friend, a New Zealander named Brendan (not McCullum!), and he said the company insists on sourcing its fruits from India (each can of Good has 40 per cent fruit juice). Passionfruit is an exception, naturally, but Brendan surprised me by saying that the company has zeroed in on a vendor in Kerala. Imagine having passionfruit from Kerala! It reminded me of what celebrity chef Vikas Khanna said to me some time back: "There's nothing that isn't grown or eaten in India." Of course, he wasn't talking about fruits, but octopus cooked Keralan style!

I was lucky to catch up with Ajoy Shaw, Sula's talented and forever happy winemaker. He treated me to a Rasa 2007, a 100 per cent Shiraz, which still has maintained its ruby red hue bordering on purple, its luscious tannins slithering down my thirsty throat. Sula is re-launching Rasa 2007 as a Collector's Edition wine. Shaw said it was a pity Sula couldn't hold back stocks of its top-end wines -- my favourite, Dindori Reserve Shiraz, being one of them -- for later release. The demand for Sula wines invariably shoots ahead of the supply.

I asked Shaw about his preparations for the tough-as-nails Master of Wine examination. He said he wakes up sometimes at 3:30 in the morning to prepare for it, because he has full-time job to do. The process is expensive. It requires extensive wine tasting opportunities, which are not easy to come by in India, unlike, say, in London, where you have such events every week. And there's a lot of emphasis put on your English writing skills, which a biochemist such as Shaw may at times find challenging. I had heard the same story from Sonal Holland of ITC at the Chandon launch in Mumbai. But something tells me, both will eventually become India's first Masters of Wine.

Sulafest is not only about food, wine and music. It's also about conversations and memories that remain with you for a long time after the curtains have come down on the event.

TASTING NOTES: India Gets First Sparkling Wines with French Pedigree from Moet Hennessy

Moet Hennessy's Regional Managing
Director Mark Bedingham with a bottle
of the Chandon Brut at the launch of
the sparkler at the Four Seasons
Mumbai on October 20.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

I HAVE just come back to my 18th-floor room at the Four Seasons Mumbai from a sneak preview tasting of the Chandon Brut and Rose, Moet Hennessy India’s debut methode traditionelle sparkling wines from Nashik, convinced that the country has a future as a serious producer of bubbles made with wine grapes and not Thompson seedless.

The Brut (Maharashtra MRP: Rs 1,200) arrived with a rush of playful little bubbles — the first visible sign of a good sparkling wine — and it effortlessly balanced crispy acidity with citrusy notes, without really letting its 10gm/litre residual sugar (high by French standards) over-express itself. So, if you’re looking for a Prosecco equivalent, this is not the one. The residual sugar (a result, predictably, of the 84 per cent presence of Chenin Blanc, which is not one of the grapes you’d associate with a methode traditionelle sparkling wine) was present in the background, but only to soften the acid attack. And just in case you’ve been wondering about it, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the other two grape varieties that have contributed the remaining 16 per cent of wholesome sparkler that lasts longs on the palate.

The balance was stunning and I felt honoured to be drinking the sparkler with its maker, Kelly Healy, a New Zealander who has been making sparkling wine for the past 17 years. It is just the kind of bubbly I would serve friends before a lazy, conversation-laden Sunday lunch, where I would order in Mini Mughal’s smoky, juicy butter chicken, and open the Rose (Maharashtra MRP: Rs 1,400) when people settle down to eat.

This is the first genuine Rose sparkling wine I have had in India — its competitors, I am afraid, taste like turpentine. It seamlessly marries the fruitiness of Shiraz with the structure of Pinot Noir to titillate your palate and draw out best feelings. This is just the sparkling wine you’d have with wholesome (but not chilli hot) rarha mutton or even the kosha mangsho of the Bengalis. Dal Makhni and Shahi Paneer are the vegetarian dishes that I can see getting along famously with the bubbly.

As we tasting the sparklers, I asked Mark Bedingham, Regional Managing Director, Moet & Hennessy Asia-Pacific about the difference Chandon will make to the wine drinking culture in the country. For those who can’t afford the price points of champagne, Bedingham said, Chandon offers “affordable luxury”. He said the sparklers had been made to “reach out to a whole bunch of new customers”, especially “the rising young professional class”.

Its custodians expect it to open up the market, at present very limited for sparkling wine, which have a 3-5 per cent market share in the country — naturally, because champagne has never been seriously appreciated; it has either been flaunted or reserved for consumption on festive occasions. “Emerging lifestyles in India are sympathetic to the consumption of sparkling wines,” Bedingham said.

The Chandon Brut is 84 per cent Chenin Blanc and
8 per cent each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The
Rose is 90 per cent Shiraz and 10 per cent Pinot Noir,
which has become Nashik's varietal to look out for. 

The Chandon sparkling wines are now being produced and bottled at the Nashik-based York Winery, but Moet Hennessy India is all set to open its own winery at Dindori, a taluka with perfect soil for wine grapes that was first put on the country’s wine map by Rajeev Samant, the man behind the humongous success of Sula Vineyards. “We are here to be the pioneers for the highest quality of Indian wines,” Bedingham assured me as I couldn’t stop admiring the Rose. The tasting session convinced me that he wasn’t overstating his company’s case.

A SPARKLING NIGHT: The Chandon sparklers were launched on October 19 at a glittering party with the chatterati in full attendance, who, in true Mumbai style, sashayed in only after midnight. From the glamorous writer Shobhaa De, who looked younger than her daughter, to industrialist Gautam Singhania and actor Arjun Rampal, the city’s A-List partied hard till the wee hours to the heart-pumping music of the deejay, who had been flown in for the day from Paris.

The wine world was there too — from Rajeev Samant, who was a force to reckon with on the dance floor, and Ashwin Deo, a former managing director of Moet Hennessy India who has now his own wine label, Turning Point, to Sonal Holland of ITC Hotels, who, I learnt, is one of four Indians to get the WSET-IV certificate, which is quite a creditable achievement, to Indian Wine Academy President Subhash Arora, Sommelier India founder-editor Reva Singh, Business Standard columnist Alok Chandra, and celebrated wine trainer and writer Magandeep Singh.

I was most happy to meet Ian Morden, the estate director of Cloudy Bay, a jewel in the Moet Hennessy crown. A South African whose warmth is so natural and welcoming, Morden was the one who was given the charge of initiating the Chandon project five years ago. He still remembers how his first port of call was Sula, where Samant floored him with his hospitality. Maybe that gave Moet Hennessy the confidence to launch Chandon.