Sommelier India Issue 4, August-September 2016 in circulation

I sometimes stop to think how many people (beyond the rosy statistics) consider wine to be important to their lifestyles? An editorial in a UK publication stated that we wine writers deal with, arguably, a non-essential or luxury product, although its origins are agricultural.  If this is the view in the UK, which is a well established wine market what would do you think is our relationship to wine? A sobering thought, especially for the pioneering publisher of a wine magazine in India.

Sommelier India is a niche, special interest publication and I feel a close kinship with our readers, both online and in print. A query from another writer about the level of interest in organic wines by Indian wine drinkers set me thinking about this growing global trend which is yet to catch on in our country. Some wineries are making valiant efforts to adopt sustainable practices, but organic, and more particularly biodynamic, schedules in the truest sense are expensive and a challenge to make in a sub-tropical country like ours.