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 | Wines of Italy is a comprehensive pocket guide for lovers of Italian wine or anyone planning a wine tour of Italy. Updated and revised this pocket guide features over 700 producers and their top wines from the classics of Barolo and Brunello to the latest wines from Sicily. The book covers all the wine producing regions and appellations, the many grape varieties and in depth knowledge of emerging, well established and historic producers.
The author, Michelle Shah is a regular contributor to Sommelier India. Her most recent article in the print publication covered the future of fortified and dessert wines. |
Did you know that even though India is in the northern hemisphere grapes are harvested in the February/March time frame? The rest of the northern hemisphere harvests its grapes by October. Why is it so late in India? It's because of our wonderfully warm winters that farmers realized that grapes ripen the best in the winter months.
Learn more about harvesting and the difficulties in starting up a winery in Alok Chandra's "The grapes of wrath" column for Business Standard. Alok is a regular contributor to Sommelier India.
According to a new study by economists Orley Ashenfelter of Princeton University and Karl Storchmann of Whitman College, vineyards are getting warmer due to solar radiation and global warming. Vineyards to the north (at the top end of the latitude wine belt (50 degrees) such as those in Germany, England and Sweden are set to produce better wines while the ones in the south as in Southern France, Italy and Spain will suffer. Read more about the scientific study at Slate and the commentary over at Vinography.
How does this affect India? The warmer climates will probably negatively affect grape production given our latitude. Indian farmers maybe forced to find new, cooler locations in other parts of India as the world gets warmer.
Anthony Taylor, Sommelier of Gabriel Meffre Wines was in India recently for a wine promotion at the JW Marriott. He worked with Sebastian, the chef at Mezzo Mezzo to determine ideal food pairings.
Gabriel Meffre Wines was established in the Rhone Valley in the 1930s. It was acquired by Allied Domecq in 1990, and was then taken over by the management in November 1997.
Devesh Agarwal has published a pdf book that attempts to demystify the world of wine. As a labor of love, he is offering it for free to all wine enthusiasts and Sommelier India readers. The pdf can be downloaded here(2.5mb). Devesh is a Sommelier India subscriber and a Bangalore Wine Club member,
 | Roy Moorfield, the wine director of Chinkara Wines was in Delhi for a tasting earlier this week. Chinkara Wines belong to Natasha Oberoi of the Oberoi Hotels family. She established the company in 2002 to blend fine wines from grapes grown in Australia and export them to India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malayasia and other countries of Southeast Asia. |
Maybe the medical field really likes wine. Every year or two a medical researcher discovers yet another health benefit in drinking wine. This time Jun Wang and other researchers at the New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered that red wine may help reduce alzheimer's disease. There is one caveat, this is based on a study conducted on mice. We are yet to see whether it applies to human beings as well.
Grover Vineyards is today the only domestic wine major not to own a production facility in Maharashtra and that's about to change. By February 2007, Grover Vineyards plans to crush and bottle wine at a hired bottling plant in Maharasthra and will put up its own winery there later in the year.
Why bother doing this? Quite simply because Maharashtra's excise duties are aimed at protecting local producers and push up the prices of wines not produced there. By the end of September, Grover's second line of wines, christened Sante, will be on retail shelves across the country except in Maharasthra. These wines will be 60% cheaper than Grover's existing wines.
But they cannot be sold in Maharashtra at the same price because of the excise duties. This will change once the wines are produced within the state as well. Read more at Business Standard.
UB Group chairman Vijay Mallya on Tuesday said he wants to introduce a new brand of wine called Kingfisher Wine. There is also a move to launch a luxury beer called Kingfisher Ultra.
Revealing this at AGM, Mallya said Kingfisher wine will be launched in six months. "We have the distribution muscle to push this through,' Mallya said.
Nick Breuer a winemaker from Jacob's Creek in the Barossa Valley, Australia was in Delhi on Sunday, September 18th for a tasting at the Maurya Sheraton. The wine tasting included a lunch and was by invitation only.
Around 2 million glasses of Jacob Creek wine are enjoyed everyday around the world making it Australia's most popular wine. Their Shiraz South Australia Reserve 2003 is an absolute must try and has been given 91 points by Wine Spectator. It also collected a Silver medal at the Taster’s Guild International Wine Show in the U.S.A. |  |
For wine enthusiasts in Mumbai, Sanjay Menon's wine classes at Indigo Deli are an option worth considering. For each class, he chooses a grape and discusses it. Saturday's grape was Sauvignon Blanc. The wines on the tasting menu included Paso de Luz Sauvignon Blanc, Sancerre Blanc, Pascal Jolivet, Oxford Landing Sauvignon Blanc and Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc. For reservations call 022- 66551010.
The Rotary Club of Shillong organized a lecture titled, "The World of Wine" recently. The lecture covered viticulture, vinification and of course wine tasting. The wines were sponsored by Chateau indage. Rajesh Swarnakar who is a trained Sommelier, led the lecture and the tasting. Incidently, he has served as a Sommelier on the Queen Mary 2.
Nashik has 23 wineries alone and this weekend's Nashik Wine Festival was an opportunity for many of the smaller wineries to showcase their wines. The farmers were at the stalls discussing and promoting their own wines.
Do your children drink too much? Are they at risk of becoming binge drinkers? Have you seen your teenager return home from a party smelling of alcohol? This is a serious problem in the UK and experts recommend that parents adopt a "Mediterranean approach" where youngsters drink in moderation.
Lead author of a study, Professor Mark Bellis says that parents should encourage children to enjoy a glass of wine during family meals. Thay way parents will slowly influence their children's drinking habits and the children in turn will not drink to be rebellious. Will this work in India? Read the full article about drinking in the UK here.
Diageo is planning to bring its global wine brands to India as well and is in the market for acquisitions too. They would add to Diageo's wine portfolio, which includes B&G, Blossom Hill and Sterling Vineyards. Diageo is a billion dollar wine business worldwide and would like to add Indian wines to the portfolio to sell abroad.
According to the Times of India, the Maharashtra government has given the go-ahead to retailers to sell wine, a move that is expected to provide a major boost to the fledgling retail industry. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has been pushing this initiative. The state government now allows supermarkets and modern format retailers to sell wine.
This is exceptionally good news for wine drinkers in Maharashtra and hopefully it will encourage other states to enact similar laws.
First it was the Times of London and Business 2.0 who covered the Indian wine scene and now its the Associated Press's turn. In an article that discusses the wine industry and the growth potential, the author covers the growth statistics and how Indians are just beginning to move away from whiskey. And as Sourish Bhattacharyya, (a Sommelier India contributor) aptly points out in the article, India needs to develop its own lexicon for describing wine.
With awareness of the Indian wine scene growing and government laws easening things are certainly starting to look up for wine drinking in India. If you want to keep pace with the world of wine and become an informed drinker, subscribe to Sommelier India today.
 | In an interview with The Statesman newspaper today, Rajeev Samant of Sula Vineyards emphasized that there are two types of wine drinkers - those that are just beginning to drink alcohol and are starting with wine and those who have been whiskey drinkers are and are being encouraged to switch to wine for health reasons. |
A resident of the tourist town Pokhara in western Nepal, Jhalak Thapa has made wine with local ingredients namely herbs along with curd, ginger and honey. So far nearly 1.5 million bottles of his wine "Hill Hot" have been made available in four flavours. We haven't tried these wines but are certain they will have a unique taste!
In a recent article for The Economic Times, Vikram Doctor discussed the Cork versus Screwcap issue. This is a subject we've already covered in the Sommelier India magazine as well. For the world of wine, it is an important question and a controversial one too. However, the more I read about the issue, the more I wonder how much it really matters to Indian wine drinkers.
Did you know that there is a glut of Merlot grapes in California? And not suprisingly, thanks to the success of the movie Sideways there is a shortage of Pinot Noir. But does this mean anything beyond the obvious which is that Pinot Noir wines will get more expensive while Merlot wines will be cheaper?
It certainly does. The next time you buy a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon wine, it will probably have a lot more Merlot in it than you realize. The truth is that for a Californian winemaker to label a wine a specific varietal, only 75% of that wine must be of that varietal. So for example, a Robert Mondavi wine only needs 75% of it to be from Cabernet Sauvignon for it to be called a Cab. The rest can be any other grape like Merlot. In years when there is an excess of a specific grape, it is used for the remainder 25%.
That's what's happening with Merlot this year. So expect to drink a lot more Merlot without really realizing it. Most winemakers follow this practice within certain boundaries as they're worried about seriously compromising the quality of their wines. The winemakers have businesses to run and like every other business try to use supply and demand to their advantage.
The UB Group has appointed Abhay Khewadkar as a senior vice president and chief winemaker. Prior to this, Khewadkar was with India's Grover Vineyards. UB is looking to make further investments in wine after picking up Bouvet-Ladubay in July. Rumor has it that they are looking at buying a South African winery.
All this bodes well for the Indian wine scene. The more cross pollination there is the faster the industry will grow and the more competitive it will become. This will hopefully translate into better quality wines, cheaper prices and more innovative marketing. All positive trends for wine drinkers.
Champagne Indage hopes to open 1,000 retail outlets across India in the next one year. They hope to sell 30% of their wines via their own retail outlets. They are currently the largest wine producer in India and 60% of their production are red wines. They currently have the capacity to make 6.5 million litres and plan to increase it to 14 million litres. They are also planning to distribute their wines in California using a label called "Tiger Hill."
 | Can you imagine a world in which a little robot tells you what wines you like, where to find them and whether a specific bottle will satisfy you even before you have opened it? Well that world may not be that far off.
Researchers in Japan have built a robot that uses laser sensor to fire infrared light through a bottle and determine the varietal, type and quality of wine. |
Currently, the wine-bot can only differentiate between just a few dozen varieties however the inventors believe that in the future the robot can be personalised to alert a customer to the wines they prefer, and to recommend new varieties that they might like to try. Read about Robo-Sommeliers' on the BBC website.
The editors at the Financial Express are also supporting the movement pushing to introduce new, more reasonable liquor laws and tax policies across India. They righly point out that the current tax regime hurts consumers and makes life difficult for producers, importers and distributors as well. Read Revamp liquor regulation and tax policy for the full story.
Italian wine exports to India increased by 115% during the first five months of the year. This compared to data from the first half of 2005. Indians are drinking a lot more wine, there is no doubt about that. Nevertheless, a 115% increase is huge. The question is who is drinking the most Italian wine. Is it happening in the independent restaurants, the hotels or the homes? Tell us what you drink and why.
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